Coming of Age
by Tim Cummings
Summary: The lost Argons, distant descendants of old Earth, try to come to terms with their Terran brothers...who think that having stayed on Earth makes them the authorities even though they have descended just as much. Patrick Henry, an Argon patriot, is recruited as a spy. His insertion into Terran space leads to adventure, wealth, and unexpected maturity.
1. Chapter 1

**Prologue**

"We need to infiltrate Terran space," the Admiral said. "See what they're up to."

"Find out what's cooking on the home fires, eh sir?"

"Dammit! They aren't our home fires! Terra is no more closely related to old Earth than we are. We may be brothers, but their goddamned 'welcome back children' attitude chaps my ass! And I can tell from your smirk you knew exactly the response your clever remark was going to get! Intelligence officers need to be smart, not smart assed."

"Sorry sir. We actually have a plan in motion, if that takes the sting out of it."

"If it's a good plan."

"It is. And I think we finally found the right man for the job."

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**Chapter One**

The guy they think is the right man for the job is me, Patrick Henry. Named for an old Earth patriot that for some reason is better remembered by modern Argons than the Terrans. Not that being recognized as an Argon patriot by the Terrans would help with my mission.

There's no way to build an identity from scratch that would fool the Terrans, so the boys in intel came up with an alternative plan that has merit. Theoretical merit anyway. We'll have to see how it goes once it's further in play. The trick, basically, is working with my real background in the Argon military but finding a way to cut me off from it.

Which is how I came to be hanging around on the trading station in Omicron Lyrae during the Heretic's End negotiations. The Paranid chose Heretic's End to open a gate to Terran space, god only knows why. Now they've waived any claim to the sector and the mess they made. The Terrans say that since the sector connects to the Sol system they plan to 'administer' it as a security buffer. Needless to say the Argon government isn't going to accept making refugees out of the system's inhabitants and relocating them 'somewhere in your nest of backwaters' as some Terran marine at the other end of the bar just suggested as a solution. Their diplomats of course are less crudely blunt...but just barely.

In the ensuing brawl I managed to land one solid punch to the jaw of a cop who walked right into it. Then in a flurry of shattering glass and broken chairs I made a hasty exit and ran for the hanger bay. Not that running would actually solve anything, since at least twenty people in the bar can ID me, at least five will grudgingly, a couple probably will gladly, and one will for sure because that's his part to play.

So it was definitely mustering out time. But one punch to a cop probably wouldn't overcome my record and get me anything but an honorable discharge. And that's not likely to make me seem like a good prospect for service with the Terrans. However, a little bonus in mustering out pay goes a long way towards destroying a man's reputation.

With my old buddy Endy Jerrigan clinging to the hull of my service Elite in a spacesuit I surrendered to the cops. They took me into custody, did a quick override on the ship and sent it to their impound bay on autopilot. The paperwork is all in order, and clearly they lost the ship, not me. Endy took manual control, climbed in, and slid it into the recycling queue at the shipyard. Before anyone knew it was gone it was, well, gone.

When I got pulled out of the brig I was pretty much a footnote. The military and the local cops were more interested in fighting over who was going to pay for the impounded and subsequently lost interceptor. Pretty much everyone knew it wouldn't be me, since I wasn't likely to have any pay they could take it out of.

I could have made a grand snotty gesture and had my brand new full kit discoverer vanguard idling on autopilot at the master-at-arms port when I mustered out, and if the Terrans would have been around to see it I probably would have. Instead Endy picked me up in his new merc tanker and dropped me off to pick up my new ride at the docking bay of a cahoona bakery where he was picking up a load.

Endy is my ace in the hole. I'm only being established as persona non grata to give the Terrans a reason to trust me, but make no mistake, if this all goes wrong I'm not likely to get a retroactive medal, honorable discharge, and a pension. When I told my contact at Argon intelligence that I would arrange my own dishonorable discharge I think they expected me to wind up a penniless pawn in their game. When he asked what had become of my ship I just shrugged and told him to ask the cops.

Endy gave me a job, since I'm suddenly unemployed and he's an old friend. An old friend who coincidentally had a sudden salvage windfall and decided to get in the trading business. Of course he's about as qualified to be a trader as he would be to rewire a Xenon, but that's neither here nor there.

I managed to join up with a 'civilian show of support task force' accompanying the Terran delegation and their proper Argon military escort back to their station in Heretic's End. The navy boys were all familiar faces, and none of them too pleased to see me. Word had gotten around, and my scout ship with the shipyard gloss still on the surfaces gave a pretty good indication that my lost naval property hadn't been as cleanly impounded as it seemed.

Even the Terrans, who wouldn't recognize good manners if they banged into them face first, realized that their military escort and their civilian volunteer escort were as likely to shoot at each other as anyone else. Since I wasn't bound to the formations military regs require they also noticed that I bagged more targets than the military guys when a Xenon fighter group got in the way. At the end of the flight when they suggested they could always use some good pilots and got snubbed appropriately by the military guys they were happy to take me on.

After a demonstration stint patrolling with the Terrans I was accepted more or less into their society. Still banned from what they call the 'inner system', but not held at gunpoint by their regular military, or having my ship dissected for components with what they call artificial general intelligence. I was welcomed enough to get Endy a contract shuttling goods around Heretic's End.

Useful, since him being able to pay me requires him making money, which he was not particularly trained for. But a little practice goes a long way. And a good contact at the shipyard in OmLy goes even further. I managed to turn a contract to salvage a ship, a Teladi frigate no less, into a mysterious disappearance and another windfall for Endy.

In the old days we'd have blown those credits on booze, dope, and hookers. Of course in the old days I could count on my military pay, and Endy always seemed to be handy when I had some salvage that didn't need to go through channels so neither of us were into financial security.

With the change in circumstances we found religion. Seriously. I took up with the Goners.

Hauling stuff around Heretic's End even Endy got clued in to the local market situation. Doing some favors for the higher ups in the Goner faithful I got clued in that while their sector is technically Argon territory any stations built there would be so appreciated that the source of funds wouldn't be too closely looked at. So Endy and I built our future in Elysium of Light and got in the wheat business.

I managed to salvage a Buster. Strange little ship. An interceptor class, but a sentinel model. Interceptors are supposed to be fast, sentinel models are distinguished by heavier shields and weapon banks, which costs them speed. The navy doesn't use Buster Sentinels, and as far as I know there isn't a shipyard that builds them, so I have no idea how one came to be abandoned.

It was handy though. Great for stripping the shields off of Paranid freighters. I got plenty of the three-eyed cows to abandon ship, which in Argon space means free salvage rights. Docked them at wheat farms and Endy hired local guys as buyers. Picked up another Merc Tanker and hired a pilot to shuttle energy around Elysium of Light, and Endy picked up a jump drive for his ship and took over transporting wheat. Completely.

The whole region. The guy has a head for trading. Who would have guessed?

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**Chapter 2**

The Terrans weren't suitably impressed when I showed up for my next patrol assignment in a Nova Raider. They gave me some of their scout ships to use as remote wingmen, but the limits they impose on artificial intelligence make their ship AIs too slow to be trusted in a firefight, especially in ships that are that fast. Once they saw the Nova tear through a couple flights of Xenon they understood why I had just parked the Rapiers.

My Terran companions certainly weren't lacking for firepower, but the Terran weapons lack rate of fire and their plasma bursts travel too slowly. The Xenon were flying rings around them without getting hit.

They laughed when I shifted down to impulse ray emitters once the Xenon fighters had been dealt with, but I had the last laugh when the IREs proved to be the only weapon on the field fast enough to take down the Xenon scouts. One Terran pilot grumbled that their poltergeist missiles would have gotten them, and was not amused when I added 'eventually'.

He would be even less amused if he knew that my observations on Terran weaponry are being fed straight to Argon intelligence. Swarms of fast ships would present a serious problem for the Terrans. Maybe we can introduce them to the Ka'ahk.

With Endy shipping wheat constantly, and drawing another of our experienced pilots in to help with that, I thought we should have more ships assigned to general trading duties. I was particularly concerned that without an adequate supply of energy cells our wheat customers wouldn't be able to consume our product as fast as we could deliver it.

In the aftermath of the massive shortage we were taking advantage of that wasn't a problem. The two distribution freighters were draining our buying bays as fast as they made their purchases and hauling our own product out as fast as it was produced as well. But with the added production the shortage is not going to last if consumption slows down.

Endy pointed out that our wheat sources, other than our own farms, are also subject to running short of energy cells. Since they supply three quarters of the wheat we are selling that could just as easily leave us short as our consumers running out of energy could leave us buried in product.

I called in the freighters that I had assigned to random shipping routes that had caught my attention, and bought ten new Mercury Tankers. I figured that with my half dozen experienced pilots and ten new apprentices on the task the output of the three solar power plants within a couple sectors of OmLy could be distributed to our suppliers and our customers.

Teleconferencing with the sixteen pilots did not go well. I stated my intention to distribute energy cells, then pointed out that my work with the Terrans gave us access to the power plant in Heretic's End.

"Boss, that power plant is closed. Xenon raid."

Dammit. Without that power plant e-cells could run short. With sixteen pilots waiting on the line though I didn't want to get too tied up thinking about that. I shifted to the power plant in Circle of Labor.

"That plant is closed too. Pirate raid, though rumor has it the Terrans are behind it."

The meeting collapsed into a general discussion of the Terrans and their suspicions that the Argon government is somehow involved with the Xenon. While I know those suspicions are real I don't think it's likely the Terrans would hire pirates to retaliate against a solar power plant.

Having seen the overabundance of power plants in the Sol system I suspect a more mundane source for these raids. Simple greed. I had planned on being able to buy e-cells at rock bottom prices, but with these closures there wasn't just a shortage of transportation, there was going to be a real shortage of e-cells.

I dispatched my guys to the remaining power plant in Nyana's Hideout, to the nearest Terran plant in Mars orbit, to Midnight Star where the only other plants in the region are even though those plants aren't very big, and to the nearest Teladi power plants beyond Belt of Aguillar. Long inefficient runs for minimal profits, but it keeps the region from coming to a standstill...and keeps them buying wheat, hopefully.

Once they were all on their way I moved on to Elysium of Light. Since the Goners are hosting our main business I wanted to continue improving my friendship with the leaders of the movement. Not much need probably, since having Grains of Elysium's energy manager permanently assigned is keeping the power plant humming and the local cloth business stocked up. In fact I ran into a great bargain on a huge shipment of cloth, which I had one of my salvage freighters pick up and distribute to trading stations all over the region while I gathered some more building materials for the new Goner temple.

It was while I was in Elysium of Light that things started going wrong. Nyana's Hideout is on the Xenon migration path, and it attracts pirates. If I had a choice I wouldn't use that power plant at all, and I certainly wouldn't assign rookie pilots to load there. And if I had a choice the universe wouldn't be full of three eyed cows either, so I have learned to make do.

Unfortunately in this case making do cost me a ship and a pilot. I couldn't get there in time to stop the attack, but I did get vengeance. Not that vengeance will make the pilot's family feel any better, or put the quarter million credits back in my pocket. This brought another point of 'making do' front and center as a problem to be dealt with.

I had far more ships than shield generators. Serious shield generators anyway. The only source I had located for 25 meg shield generators was a factory in Teladi space, which I had bought out of stock, and the Terran refit docks, who wouldn't sell them to me.

The Teladi source had outfitted my Nova and my primary salvaging freighter, but my troop transport and my entire trading fleet were all gimping along with 5 meg generators...including the two GoE distribution ships with their irreplaceable veteran pilots who were bringing in millions of credits.

Rather than searching the unknown universe for factories making 25 meg shield generators, most of which would belong to Split who don't like me much or three eyed cows who frankly hate me anyway, I set out to negotiate with the Terrans. After kissing some important brass hatted butts, greasing a few palms, and doing an assortment of favors I wound up at the shipyard in Mars orbit. I bought two freighters, overpriced, and loaded them with fifty shield generators apiece.

"I like to be safe," I said blandly to the astonished sales rep as I signed over the eight million credits. I would have paid ten million if they had distributed them to all my various ships for me. If I had had ten million. Which I didn't. I had to draw a million out of Grains of Elysium to cover the eight.

I flew around in my Magnetar, using the Buster, the Advanced Discoverer I got from the Terrans, or the Nova, and sometimes all three at once, to deliver the shield generators. The freighters all picked up cargo compressors so the increased shielding didn't cut into their capacity. Between the credits trickling in from e-cell trading and some odd jobs I did along the way I managed to replenish my accounts without tapping into GoE again.

I blame that bit of routine but necessary business for shutting down my brain.

Wheat sales had started to fall off. Without really looking into it I did a quick count of local beef suppliers, realized there weren't enough to supply all the cahoona bakeries, and concluded that the cahoona bakeries must be losing interest in buying wheat because they are running out of beef.

So I built a cattle ranch.

A _big_ cattle ranch.

Since the only adequate energy supply in the entire region is the plant in Nyana's Hideout I built it there and promoted a few of my most experienced pilots to manage it. Welded a bunch of scrap freighters salvaged from the Paranids to all the existing cattle ranches, hired buyers and set out to corner the market on beef just like we did with wheat.

Not too long after setting this up I found that the Hidden Ranch Cattle Company had two distribution ships sitting idle, every buyer had a full bay, the factory was filling rapidly, and the only income was coming from the energy manager who was distributing e-cells around Nyana's Hideout...and that energy manager needed credits in the account to keep functioning. Those credits were being drawn out by the cattle buyers as fast as they went in.

And wheat sales hadn't picked up either.

Surprise! Those scumsucker cahoona makers just use whatever's cheapest! That cahoona burger you are eating may not contain any beef AT ALL! I figured they used wheat as filler. I never thought they would just make wheat burgers! If I ever get in the cahoona business I swear my bakeries will make only 100 percent pure beef cahoonas, mark my words.

Anyway.

Turns out that providing them energy, wheat and beef had sent the bakeries into overdrive and totally glutted the cahoona market. I set one of my freighters to stuff all the cahoonas they could hold into the local trading stations and set off to find another market.

I also reset the operating price point for the cattle business. Selling off all that inventory won't make any significant profit, but at least it will generate some liquid credits so I can stop propping them up.

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**Chapter 3**

I've had my fill of Terrans. And Teladi. Maybe I should just tell Argon Intelligence to eat space. I'm a civilian now. I could fully embrace the Goner path, but I look silly in robes. Or I could just be a regular businessman. That seems easy enough. Except when it isn't, which come to think of it is two times out of three.

Argon intel can't really need my help with the Terrans anyway. Turns out they gave me that souped up discoverer so that I could go into the commonwealth on a clandestine mission. Failing to notice I was _flying an Argon fighter_ when they gave it to me. Oh well.

I got a good chuckle from the irony that the Terrans were sending me to spy on the Argon, then alerted Argon intelligence to pick up this Pearle character I was supposed to be meeting. They did a good job, following him until he did something obvious and then whisking him off for interrogation. His partner never had a clue that they had been tipped off. Of course as yet I haven't noticed anything that she does have a clue about.

And I have spent enough time with her to have noticed, if there was anything. She reminds me of the old joke; I spent a month with her one day. I guess her company might not have been that bad if it wasn't for her apparent belief that 'being inconspicuous' involves never tuning the engine of your ship. HELLO! An Elite is an interceptor class. People expect it to be faster than a damaged freighter. Go ahead and tune that up. Maybe even buy a jump drive.

At least while I was following her endlessly through space I had time to keep tabs on the freighters I was managing by remote. Frantic shoveling of cahoonas into every other region of Argon space I could find got the wheat business back on track, and stopped the giant sucking sound as credits whooshed out of my account into the cattle business. Not a practical long term solution, but it kept me occupied.

Then came the Teladi. The first one anyway. A fat lizard whose name I didn't really catch I don't think. Gastrointestinal would be the first name of a disease, not a Teladi, right?

Finding out that this scheming snake had clearance to the Argon military sector that I don't have any more set my teeth on edge. I almost smoked him for it on the spot.

This guy actually might be a disease, but killing off one of his competitors didn't bother me much. I'm sure he was pretty much a disease too. My Terran associate was certainly squeamish about it though. Her Teladi friend probably won't be asking her to do that sort of thing again.

If he does it will be because Argon intelligence wants him to. They picked him up and explained the new facts of life to him as soon as we cleared the sector. He'll make a great conduit to the Terrans for any misinformation we need them to have. I offered to come back and kill him, for free, but the regular intel guys think he might be useful.

Anyway, after another seemingly endless trek across the universe we arrived at the MilSec. Fortunately the snail's pace of Heywood's Elite gave me plenty of time to arrange for a freighter full of teladianium to be waiting there for us to deliver. It also allowed plenty of time for a good interrogator to get anything useful there might have been out of her partner.

We managed his 'escape' easily enough. I got some buddies of mine to cut them off from the hanger bays so that they had to abandon the Elite and skip out through an airlock. Even two dim witted Terrans might have wondered how they got away if they had been fleeing in that heap. Argon patrols could have had to fly backwards to avoid catching them, and Pearle would have noticed. Even Heywood, maybe.

I delivered them back in Terran space and hoped that would be the last of them, but no such luck. Having served him so much better than Heywood Pearle latched on to me as a new partner and off we went to spy on the Split. A clueless Terran and an Argon, in Split space. We probably looked like two Paranids trying to hide in a herd of Argnu cattle by closing their third eyes. Admittedly if the cattle all stood on their hind legs it might be hard to tell...but I digress.

I convinced him that if we were going to be trying to keep tabs on events in Split space the only practical approach was satellite monitoring near the gates. I passed myself off to the Split as an investor monitoring freight traffic, and passed Pearle of as my tech assistant. We started deploying the sats, and it didn't take too long to identify some odd traffic toting tech components into what should have been a wide stretch of empty space.

Jumping in and scanning the freight we spotted jump drive components, indicating that someone was building and equipping ships in empty space. Actually in the hanger bays of a station transport. Terraformer ships. Not quite Xenon, but unpleasant enough and illegal as serving Teladi eggs and Paranid bacon in a breakfast cafe. Not that I'd be opposed, but there's that whole 'eating other sentient beings is cannibalism' thing. Again, I digress.

We planted a tracking beacon on the Elephant. A pretty spiffy piece of tech that Argon intel was happy to know about.

While we waited for the Split criminals to settle somewhere I introduced Pearle to the mysteries of the Goner faith. The idea of someone from Earth in a cult based on legends about Earth struck me as hilarious and even Pearle had a hard time taking it seriously, but with him being wanted by the Argon military Goner space was the only place I could let him out of the cargo bin, so he adapted.

For my part, I like the peaceful atmosphere even if my experiences in the Sol system have convinced me it is far from the idyllic picture the Goners paint of it. If it was ever like that it sure isn't now.

But I keep helping them build their temple, and they keep liking me better and better. I did convince them that since I seem to be their only reliable source of freight transport they should consider maybe taking another approach, and sold them three Mercury Tankers at a substantial markup.

With some time on my hands I started thinking about a more permanent solution to the cahoona problem. Trading stations ship cahoonas planetside, and my guy was shoveling them into the trading stations as fast as possible, but there are just too many bakeries. When their supplies were hit or miss they sort of matched with demand. Now that they are being reliably supplied...

People planetside don't eat enough cahoonas. We need more people in space. The only thing that brings people into space is jobs. I need to hire a bunch of people to eat the cahoonas. Well, I need to hire them to do something useful, then use their wages to buy the cahoonas. In fact, I can even transport the cahoonas so that I make back what they cost me in wages.

So all I need is something that a bunch of people can do for me while they eat cahoonas.

That's when I met Malhoonis Mohanis something something...well, like any Teladi he has a lot of names, so let's stick with Malhoonis.

I knew I was going to build some sort of factory, so I had hired the local station transporter. It was sitting at the docks in OmLy while I investigated various markets. The captain commed me and said he had a bit of a conflict, so I docked.

Malhoonis wanted to hire the station transport for a job in Teladi space. The captain was refusing, since he was already contracted to me...and he didn't want to go anyway I realized. Malhoonis insisted on talking to me, thinking he could swindle his way into some sort of sub contract agreement.

Eventually he did get an agreement, and I think it made everyone happy. Instead of building a crystal fab in Teladi space, where nostrop oil (Teladi food) is notoriously scarce, he opted to build an Argon plant in Nyana's hideout. Since the Captain didn't have to go to Teladi space, and in fact loaded Malhoonis' factory right there at the shipyard he was happy. I contracted with Malhoonis to supply his new plant with energy through the cattle business, so I was happy.

And I was impressed enough by his interest in the crystal business to take to it as the solution to the cahoona problem. I took a tour with my new Teladi associate as soon as his factory was placed. When I saw the size of the food storage bays on his crystal factory I would have hit the floor if the artificial gravity generators had been powered up. Thankfully the scheming Teladi didn't power them up until the workers started coming aboard.

Of course I don't want to trade more cahoonas than I can eat for more crystals than I can use, and examining the crystal market didn't reveal any great promise. So I sketched out a plan to turn cahoonas into crystals, and crystals into energy cells, which in the wake of recent events seems like a sound investment. Unfortunately between bleeding credits through the cattle business and feeding a crew of marines while they either practice their skills with hardened pirates or languish with pirate women (I'm not quite sure what I'm getting for my money there) I lack the capital to put this together all in one whack.

I got it started though. Took on a group of my experienced pilots as partners and incorporated Waste Lands Power Crystals. I figured the industrial sectors; Wastelands, Interworlds, Nathan's Voyage; were among the hardest hit by the energy shortage, so they would be a good first market. Besides, pumping energy into the industrial plants would put more people to work. And even without fully building even the first phase the new plant makes a usable cahoona warehouse. Truth is, from a practical standpoint my crystal business is not much more than that, yet.

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**Chapter 4**

I was working with my partners in the crystal business. The guys we had hired to haul cahoonas from the bakeries had proven to be steady and reliable pilots, but their ships were just not fast enough. I made arrangements with the local trading station in Waste Lands. As they brought in loads they diverted to the trading station and had a cargo compressed hold added. Big enough to carry a reasonable amount of jump fuel. I shuttled in the jump drives from a Boron supplier I've been dealing with and got them all going.

Since I was shuttling drives I was flying the Magnetar. I left Pearle living in the XO suite on my Centaur, docked in Elysium of Light, and told him to keep a low profile and monitor progress on the tracking of the Elephant slash terraformer factory. When he called I jumped to Elysium and switched ships. We met the Terran assault fleet in a Boron sector fairly close to the target.

Once again the blind arrogance of the Terrans brought me dangerously close to laughing in the face of their attempts at generosity. They gave me one of their heavy fighters for the engagement. No doubt a fine ship, and with a full load of shield generators and the slow firing plasma cannons the Terrans use I'd guess she would have cost me at least four million at the shipyard in Mars orbit, but the Centaur would have it blown to space dust before it could turn around twice. I accepted as graciously as I could, with my gun crews doing an admirable job of standing at attention without snickering, but I think the Admiral was just slightly offended when I claimed that lack of familiarity with her would make it hard for me to take the Cutlass directly into battle.

There was still time before the fleet moved out for the engagement. Strategy meetings among the brass hats no doubt. I put my time to good use, swapping stories with pilots and leading junior officers into complaints about their troops. I identified a couple prospects; guys who appeared frequently in pilots tales as leading players and just as frequently in officers complaints as military misfits. Having picked them out I tracked them down for direct conversations and made my choice. Then I asked to have him assigned to me, to fly my new Cutlass. I have plans for the ship, and her new pilot.

The Terran high command demonstrated the wisdom commonly found at the flag officer level and ordered me and my new wingman to escort the transports tasked with boarding the Elephant while the bulk of the Terran fleet took on the defenders. How many of the Split ships involved were actually devoted to defending the Elephant and how many of them were just resisting this invasion of Split territory by an uninvited fleet of Terrans is anyones guess, but the Terran fleet mostly got hammered. I held back with the transports until my intervention would look suitably heroic, then mopped up what was left of the Split, snatching victory from them and handing it over to the Terran Admiral in charge, a particularly pompous blowhard. If the Terrans ever mount an operation into Argon space hopefully they will see today on his record and put him in charge. The Argon fleet will be safer for it.

Beryl Hopkins had proven to be as competent in combat as I had expected, his spotty service record having more to do with a lack of diligent adherence to uniform regulations and a habit of pointing out stupidity when it made itself obvious, even if it was wearing insignia of higher rank. The Cutlass had taken some hits, but nothing that came close to getting through her heavy shielding, and he was much better at managing the slow rate of fire of her guns than I would have been. I had the Magnetar jump into the sector to pick up him and the Cutlass, as well as a modified Jaguar I picked up in the fray.

For reasons completely beyond my fathoming the Terrans tasked _me_ with transporting the Jaguar's pilot, a Split scientist who I had captured, to their base in orbit around Earth, near the moon. By the time he arrived liberal applications of drugs had drained all useful information into Argon Intelligence data banks. A few things the interrogators deemed too useful to let the Terrans have were wiped from his memory, along with the interrogation itself, and I handed him over to Terran intelligence (term used loosely). The Split went docilely enough, his somewhat addled state easily attributed to a minor head wound suffered during his capture.

When I caught up with Hopkins he was comfortably settled in a moderately large apartment at Grains of Elysium. I had him meet me in an office with a nice view, but devoid of furniture. He came to attention when he arrived.

"I'm not much for military protocol," I said. "Probably just as well since I have no military rank, and Grains is hardly a military installation."

"I've noticed that part," he said as he relaxed into a comfortable but ready slouch. "This is a very nice facility, and seems like a steady business."

"It pays the bills. I take it the apartment is better than a barracks?"

For my troubles I got a pretty thorough rundown of pilot accommodations on Terran bases and carriers, which will allow Argon intelligence to make better estimates of strength. I had to remind myself not to feel bad about how I was getting the information. In the end Hopkins opted to abandon his Terran roots, but he wouldn't knowingly do the Terrans an ill turn and I wouldn't want him to.

Eventually the unfurnished state of the office got his curiosity up. "Why don't you have any furniture?" he asked. Seemingly reasonable question.

"Why don't you? This is your office, if you want it," I countered.

Grains of Elysium needs some security. With over ten million credits in their accounts, the company offers a pretty prize to pirates. While the Argon government officially provides security for the Goner sector, it isn't at the top of their priority list. A single corvette on patrol is about the most that can be counted on. It seems wiser to spend the credits on security than risk losing them, so I spent them.

Hopkins accepted the job as Security Chief. It pays substantially better, and the living conditions are clearly superior. He got a good laugh when I told him that as the next step up in his official chain of command I would continue to report his performance as satisfactory for as long as he wanted to continue drawing pay from the Terrans, but he chose to put in for his discharge.

We flew to OmLy in the Magnetar and ordered four Nova Raiders fresh from the shipyard. Then we interviewed pilots together, mostly guys mustering out from the Argon fleet. I let Hopkins make the choices, but steered enough of my old mates into the mix that in the end I had two guys serving under him who I could check in with to keep tabs. With pilots getting better acquainted in the ship's lounge and new ships nestled in her hanger bays I relaxed on the bridge as the Magnetar made the jump back to Elysium of Light.

The pilots departed in their new ships, and I dropped Hopkins off at Grains to get them settled and organized. Then I contacted the Goner flagship to inform them of the improvements to sector security. They were suitably appreciative, and also had another contract for me. It seems my suggestions to the Elders have taken firm root. Having their own freighters has worked out so well that now they are thinking about building their own teladianium foundry. I agreed to oversee transport and construction. I also set up a meeting between the manager they had selected for this new enterprise and the energy department at Grains. A moderately lucrative contract for regular e-cell delivery can't hurt the bottom line, and they were happy not to have to devote one of their ships to the task. I made a note to look into the local market for teladianium. Eventually their temple will be completed and I can probably contract for their product at a fair price.

So I hired a Teladi station hauler to bring the foundry. My regular guy in OmLy doesn't really like flying into Teladi space, and I already had enough work for him anyway. Between the profits the crystal business was generating, some bonuses I worked out with Argon intelligence, a fair purchase price for their security chief's Cutlass from GoE, and some other odds and ends I had accumulated enough credits to finish construction at Waste Lands Power Crystals.

Since that was the shorter trip and his Mammoth was faster than the Teladi's Albatross my freight arrived in Waste Lands first. The construction went smoothly enough, and I was only slightly stunned by the cavernous storage bays. Getting cash flow and inventory management into some sort of harmony is going to take some time.

My partners were ecstatic at the prospects though. Having absorbed the output of the Midnight Star solar plants into our production they have monopolized energy distribution across five sectors. Now that the supply network is fully operational they have control of cahoona distribution throughout the region. Their silicon manager has monopolized distribution of that mineral throughout the region. And by contracting with Mohanis in Nyana's Hideout and the smaller factory in OmLy we have completely taken over the crystal trade in the region as well, though we will definitely have to explore some sort of export market. I left them to it without mentioning that almost all of their customers were depending on a supply of ore that would likely not be provided steadily enough for us to really enjoy this situation for long.

Having chatted with the captain of my hired Albatross as he passed through Waste Lands I made a leisurely flight back to Elysium of Light and came into the sector in time to supervise the construction of the foundry. This was a lot simpler since it was just a single plant facility and the council of elders had specified a location, even marking it with a nav buoy. I'm not sure why they even needed me, but after paying the shipyard and the captain of the Albatross I netted a tidy profit so who am I to question their decisions?

It's also not my place to question them on security matters, but I did it anyway. Unfortunately only _after_ their own ideas led to near disaster. I was happily watching Hopkins and his group running patrol exercises through the viewport of my own office suite at GoE when a frantic call came through from the Goner flagship. The First Beholder, Jani Hall, and the entire council of elders were on a corvette which was under attack. Why they would all be traveling on a single ship was the first obvious question that sprang to my mind, but there wasn't time to ask it. I gave a passing thought to Hopkins and realized that in my planning I had not considered any operations beyond the local sector and that without jump drives they would be of no use in the present situation, then dashed for my Centaur, thumbing the emergency stud on my wrist com unit as I went.

I wasn't the last to arrive, but when I reached the docking pod most of the crew was aboard and she was ready for space. In a matter of minutes we were fully manned and blew the docking clamps. We jumped immediately, but were still too late. The council's ship had been captured by pirates, and was making its way to points unknown.

I learned later that the True Light Seeker, like all Goner ships, was unarmed, making it a stupendously bad idea to make it the single basket for all those eggs. The small task force escorting it had actually been enough to capture it, with no losses on their side. I didn't know that at the time and guessed the escorts were part of a larger strike force which had left them to handle the prize and would likely return once I started shooting. I targeted the main battery on the Centaur that was obviously the pirate's flagship, told the turret gunners to fire at will but not to hit the captured Goner vessel, and swooped to the attack.

We took some hits from the turret mounted plasma throwers on the Centaur, as well as from the smaller escorts, but our shields held easily and the surprise of our attack prevented the enemy flagship from bringing her main battery to bear before she imploded. A steady stream of mosquito missiles, coordinated by our missile defense computer, prevented potentially deadly missile hits. It also prevented completely irrelevant missile hits, and shot off mosquitoes at missiles that had missed and would have flown harmlessly into space, but I'd rather the system not pick and choose. It did run out most of my supply of mosquitoes though.

Once their flagship was finished I brought the main guns to bear on any other ships I could get in my sights. I got some of the slower ones. My turret gunners probably accounted for more of the faster lightly shielded craft than I did. In any event eventually it came down to us and the captured Goner vessel, and the pirate flying her promptly surrendered.

When I went aboard I learned that his surrender involved a safe passage agreement that he had made with the elders. The same elders who were frantic because the pirates had taken Jani Hall off the ship and begging me to find and rescue him. The same elders who had granted safe passage and wouldn't let me beat any information out of what I considered a valuable captive.

I was undoubtedly gnashing my teeth in frustration, the Split pilot was gnashing his much larger teeth and suggested that at well over nine feet and six hundred pounds he wasn't likely to take a beating from me anyway. Safe passage or not I gave him one shot from my sap, which he blocked handily with a huge muscular forearm. My sap looks like a classic highwayman's tool, short leather pouch on a secure strap loaded with lead shot to give it heft. Mine is also loaded with a half meg plasma capacitor. The big Split was still twitching uncontrollably on the deck when I beamed back to my ship without the first clue where in the universe to look for Jani Hall.

But the ways of the Goners are mysterious, and apparently there's more to being First Beholder than the plaque on his desk. The Goners informed me almost immediately of the whereabouts of a ship that was headed towards their illustrious leader. How said leader knew the ship was coming, and how he communicated that fact I cannot guess. I picked up the target, a pirate fighter, blastclaw model, on my scanners and fell in twenty clicks or so behind it and matched its slow pace.

It didn't take long to figure out that the blastclaw was headed towards a jump gate, and I opted to fly ahead. Somehow the Goners knew that too and set up such a howl when I started getting away from the target that I gave up on the idea and just tagged along. Eventually we reached the gate and passed through into a nasty nebular cloud. I took one look at the number of pirate ships that appeared on my scanners and spun straight back through the gate, getting another howl from the Goners for my troubles.

I wasn't abandoning the mission, I just didn't think blasting my way across pirate space would be the most effective solution. Given that two of the angry red blips on my scanners were capital ships I also didn't think it was a realistic solution. A quick jump delivery by the Magnetar and I was back through the gate in the comfortable pilot's couch of my Discoverer, Magnetar and Centaur standing by at the nearest Teladi station.

I dodged among the pirate task forces and kept the blastclaw in range mostly to the Goners' satisfaction. The quarry led me on a seemingly endless flight through the nebula, but eventually passed through a gate into yet another sector filled with pirates. Some of them picked me up as I came through the gate and launched missiles, but in a chase they had no chance and allowed me to slip beyond their sensor range. I shot down any missiles fast enough to get close, and was glad to see that the Kestrel pilots stayed with their task forces rather than coming after me. They would have been fast enough to catch me and would have made holding the blastclaw in range challenging.

After another long transit we passed through another gate, into a sector the gate network identified as Ghaian Star and my scanners identified as crawling with pirates in case my slow train of pursuers weren't enough. While I could easily run away from that slow train even the capital ships were faster than the pace set by my quarry in the blastclaw; probably his intent. Bobbing and weaving to avoid close contact with the thick swarm of pirates I identified the pirate base in the distance on the blastclaw's vector and once again flew out ahead. This time the Goners didn't complain.

Somehow the First Beholder chose that moment to make a mad dash, clamber into a space suit, and blow himself out an airlock. How he knew I would be outside and more or less ready to catch him I have no idea. What he would have done floating around in a spacesuit with seemingly uncountable pirates, including a new swarm that boiled out of the base in pursuit I have even less of an idea. As it was I managed to scoop him unceremoniously into the cargo bay and jump the heck out of there, but the whole situation was well beyond bizarre.

When we got back to Elysium of Light I found the Goner corvette docked at Grains, apparently meant as a reward of sorts. What to do with it I have no idea, but you can be sure I'll be equipping it with guns of some sort.

I thought the mysterious powers of Jani hall would be the strangest thing I encountered, at least for a while. I was about as far wrong as I could be.

I was trying to get reorganized after the rescue operation. Getting the ships I had left in Teladi space back home and refueled; getting my freighters back to running ore; checking on the progress of my marines in their pirate operated training program that I'm starting to think might have been a thinly disguised vacation resort hustle; that sort of thing. And I found that I had misplaced a jump drive.

I say things got strange, and you might be thinking I meant losing a jump drive, but that isn't it. It isn't like I lose equipment on a regular basis, but it isn't all that unusual. I transfer jump drives around a lot. I buy used ships. I claim stray ships that Paranid pilots misplace. Sometimes people even hire me to bring them ships, either from a shipyard or possibly their own ships that somehow got left adrift. Often I'm in a hurry or I want the ship out of a dangerous area and I'll mount a jump drive on it to get it moving. I keep a spare in the gear locker aboard the Magnetar just for that reason, and it was the spare from the gear locker that was missing. Apparently I installed it in something and forgot to get it back. It may turn up, or it may not.

In any event I jumped into Queen's Harbor in the Magnetar to pick up a replacement. Apparently someone at Atreus' Shipping Currents HQ has been talking about me, which I will have to look into. A Boron hailed my ship out of the blue, saying that he had been looking for a well respected friend of the Boron such as me. Without saying anything one way or another about being a friend to the Boron I asked him what he wanted. Now this seems pretty strange, and it was, but looking back this was just another day, relatively speaking.

The Boron, by the name of Mahi Ma, needed help finding some friends, who were lost in Xenon space of all places. I muted the com link and shared a look with the Magnetar's regular pilot, who was at the navigation console. We both said one word, at the exact same time. It would have been funny, except the word was 'dead'. I released the mute in time to hear "I'm sure we could pay you well." After a bit of negotiation, specifically covering payment for my time should his friends turn out to be dead, I agreed to go look for them.

The clincher was the ship Mahi Ma was in. A Dolphin freighter that looked pretty much ordinary, but scans were showing a highly unusual engine configuration, and I estimated she would have a higher top speed than any Dolphin I had ever seen. If I could get in good with this Mahi Ma, I figured I might be able to get access to this technology. The first step on the road to weirdness looks so normal.

We docked at Atreus HQ and got the jump drive we came for, then jumped deep into Split territory to a gate that showed on the map data Mahi Ma had provided as the most likely point of entry into Xenon space his friends would have taken. With my recent success dodging pirates still fresh in my mind I took off from there in the Discoverer.

The Xenon weren't as cooperative as the pirates had been. A couple of their fastest N scout craft left their groups behind and sped after me. One on one they had little chance against the Discoverer the Terrans gave me. I crossed two sectors without too much trouble, reaching the gate that should have taken me into the sector Mahi Ma's friends were supposed to be headed for. That's when the slippery slope into weirdness turned into a cliff.

I emerged from the gate (actually according to Mahi Ma I didn't emerge, the space I was in is actually contained somehow in the abstract non-space between the gates) into a huge spherical construction. When I say huge, whatever you are thinking it isn't huge enough. Maybe not planets, but I have definitely seen moons that would fit inside it. The Argon main battle fleet could conduct an exercise inside it. And drifting in the center of it was the wreckage of a ship.

It showed a spark of power, which turned out to be a reserve pack in the central computer. When I got close enough to tap in it transferred out the captain's logs with the last bit of power and the ship was dead. Julian Brennan's ship.

Yes, Mahi Ma's mysterious friends turn out to be Julian Brennan and Bala Gi. That pretty well explains the source of the engine technology in his ship. Added to the totally incomprehensible mechanism I was in the middle of it also convinced me that I was well and truly out of my league, and I left. Fast.

I downloaded Brennan's logs into a hand pod, along with all records of the strange space, and erased them from the Discoverer's memory core. I docked back aboard the Magnetar, told her pilot to get me back to Queen's Harbor and Mahi Ma but to stop and refuel along the way to give me some time to think, and retired to my cabin.

I couldn't tell from the logs if Brennan was alive or dead. Bala Gi I guessed was alive. They had docked, somehow, in the giant mechanism. Bala Gi was certainly still there. Brennan had left, apparently to retrieve Mahi Ma. Whether he had escaped the ship and made it back into whatever port they had found in the mechanism in a spacesuit there was no way to know other than go back and look. I wasn't all that interested, but it would be hard to abandon two heroes of the commonwealth like Julian Brennan and Bala Gi. It also put Mahi Ma's claim that they could 'pay me well' in an entirely different light. As far as I know Bala Gi could buy Argon Prime if he felt so inclined.

We arrived in Queen's Harbor and my mind wasn't totally made up. I sent Mahi Ma a vague message and promised him details that I would only give him in person. For some reason before I could get locked on to him with the transporter device the little squid had popped out an airlock. Probably just as well since he needed his enviro suit just as much in my cabin as he did in space. He took one look at the vids of the mechanism and said "We must go. Immediately."

I tried to argue, at least a little bit. Really. But too many huge factors were colliding in my brain. Bala Gi and his unimaginable wealth. Jullian Brennan and his legendary status. And if Bala Gi had sent Brennan to get Mahi Ma, what did that say about the intellect of this particular squid? In truth I caved pretty much immediately. I did delay for a minute when I asked about Mahi Ma's abandoned Dolphin and he said "It does not matter, just leave it." I may have been star struck and overwhelmed, but I wasn't dead. If he was going to leave it to be salvaged it would be salvaged by me, not the next passing vagrant.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 5**

I gave some thought to how I wanted to return to the strange sphere. The information in my hand pod would allow a direct jump. But whether those gate images in the sphere were actual gates or just the 'inside' of actual gates didn't really matter; they connected to busy Xenon sectors. Popping out of one at the same time as a Xenon capital ship did not appeal to me at all, in any ship. So I told the pilot to jump the Magnetar to Elysium of Light, where we docked my custom Discoverer at GoE. Then we jumped off to collect my old Discoverer Vanguard, which I have been using to map sectors, a function the autopilot manages fairly well.

Another function the autopilot could handle well enough, and better than a live pilot, was jumping into the mysterious sphere and scanning for Xenon before we risked any lives. We set up in the nearest Split sector and sent it on its way. I monitored the scanners by remote, and gave my pilot the all clear so he could jump us in. We put a safe distance between the ship and the gate, then paused to allow the scout to dock.

Mahi Ma, meanwhile, was going insane; babbling almost incoherently. I made out 'transit hub' and something about connecting Kingdom End directly to Queen's Harbor, those being two Boron core sectors that are about as far apart as it is possible to get. Overall he wasn't making any sense, but he certainly has talent. Tentacles flew across our com panel, a couple of control panels on some equipment he had brought, or possibly built, and our security interface...all at the same time. In fairly short order a docking beacon glowed on a large protruding structure. Closer inspection revealed docking clamps, of an archaic design but recognizable...and apparently functional. I took Mahi Ma aboard my Nova, launched, and manually brought it into the clamps. No point risking the entire crew of the Magnetar.

I was prepared to explore in my space suit, but we found the life support systems not only functional but maintaining Argon normals. I took that as a good sign for Julian Brennan, since if only Bala Gi had survived he would likely have set them to Boron normals. Mahi Ma floated about in his enviro suit, examining panels that I knew at a glance there was no reason for me to examine, or even try to think about. Eventually he said "Here. This is an internal sensor array." For all I could tell it could have been a micro-wave oven, a lawnmower, or anything in between. "It feeds into the main computers there." He waved a tentacle vaguely towards a large blocky structure. "I should be able to build an interface unit if you can get me a few things."

I said "No problem," without considering that Mahi Ma was accustomed to working with Bala Gi. He promptly produced a list of components. Probably at least a couple hundred production cycles worth of output from a full scale computer plant. No doubt Bala Gi would just open a closet and say 'help yourself', but I gaped at the list. I had expected to hop in the Nova and pick up supplies from the Magnetar, not buy out the universe. "Okay, no problem but it may take a little time," I said.

"Please hurry. I will stay here and analyze these systems. This is a fantastic device. The potential is enormous! But first thing I would like to access that internal scanner and find Julian Brennan and Bala Gi, if they are still alive."

I considered the manpower required to search what was apparently a single machine, a giant hollow sphere tens of kilometers across with a shell hundreds of meters thick laced through with compartments, passages, and crawl spaces through intricate machinery. The scanner was obviously the only way we could even consider looking for them. "I'll be back as soon as I can," I said.

So off I went in search of computer components, after a serious meeting with the crew of the Magnetar. Mahi Ma's ravings were starting to worry me. This thing could be a weapon of epic proportions. Such epic proportions that I'm wondering what to do if he gets it working. He's a Boron, solid allies but I can't see letting the Boron end up in control of this thing. On the other hand I work for Argon intelligence, I'm a patriot and a veteran, and I'm not sure I would trust the Argon government with some sort of superweapon either. And we sure as hell can't let the Terrans get hold of it. Once we jumped out I again cleared the nav data from the ship's computer core, thinking we would rely on my hand pod.

Unfortunately I screwed up and let the secret out myself. Let it out far enough that I had to kill to keep it anyway.

My first place to look for computer components was a factory in Interworlds. Not much in stock there, but before I could decide where to go next the com link chimed. An Argon face, vaguely familiar, showed on the vid. "Patrick Henry! Like a bad penny turning up in my hour of need. Always thought you were too straight laced to end up kicked out of the service." Ah. I remembered this guy. Supply officer on a carrier I served on once. Carrier came up short on inventory a lot and he was invited to retire, though nothing was proven.

"Yeah, well, times change, people change," I said, chafed a bit by maintaining the fiction of my dishonorable discharge.

"Good thing too! Right now I really need someone like you, and you are going to bless the day you ran into me."

More like curse. He had a line on an abandoned ship. In fact he had managed a hack that had erased the ship from Boron military records, showing that instead of damaged and abandoned it had been destroyed. He just needed a pilot to bring it to the station so he could interface it and alter the registration and he would show as the rightful owner. When he told me my cut would be two and a half I must have looked confused, because he laughed and said "million, Pat, two and a half million." He was stealing a Kraken.

How to keep my cover as a dishonorably discharged anything-for-a-credit ruffian without letting a Boron capital ship fall into this scumbag's hands? I figured I'd just steal the ship from him. All I needed was a place to put it where no one would find it. And I thought I had just the place. Unfortunately the scumbag was a little smarter than I anticipated, the Kraken had a tracking beacon on board, and when I didn't deliver it he passed the beacon frequency to the cops leaving me in the helmsman's seat of a stolen Kraken docked in a mysterious sphere in non-space...and surrounded by Argon police.

I would have been inclined to just surrender the ship to them and get Argon intel to get me off the legal hook, but they weren't going to just forget about the transit hub. I was stuck. Then they revealed the way out of the trap. They offered to let me go if I turned over the ship. I didn't believe them and figured they would just shoot me, but they obviously had no intentions for me to ever see a courtroom.

Cops are basically thugs for hire, hired by the government. But these cops had allowed the government to be outbid. I had been offered two and a half million. How much was the old supply officer paying them to get the ship?

I had sent the Disco Vanguard into the hub ahead of me on autopilot again, and had planned on using it to get back to reality. I climbed into the cockpit, released the docking clamps, and hit the throttles. Then I hit the com link. Locked on my signal my Centaur popped out of a gate ten seconds later and I beamed on board. Another of my crews to be sworn to secrecy, but better them than the thugs with badges.

The top cop, recently having offered to take the Kraken and go, opened fire immediately. Fortunately he had skimped on his equipment. My Centaur was a little faster and much quicker. I settled in behind him, a single turret throwing plasma at my shields, and my main bank of particle cannons disintegrated him in short order. The smaller ships in this jackal pack went even quicker.

Mahi Ma took it all in stride. That may not be the most apt phrase since he doesn't have legs... Anyway, he did the smoothest hack I've ever seen, and now I own a Kraken.

The crew of the Centaur joined the crew of the Magnetar in the band of secrecy and we jumped out to Kingdom End. Mahi Ma recommended a couple of computer factories in and near the Boron home system, but it turned out that the entire regional economy is in total disarray. The computer plants had no stock, no resources, and most of their employees had been laid off. Every business in sight was starving for energy, and energy cells at the solar plants in Queen's Space were stacked on the docks. I bought two freighters at the Kingdom End shipyard and after consulting the owner of the computer plant for recommendations hired two Boron pilots for them. They won't be able to turn the economy around by themselves, but they will at least get some supplies to the computer plants.

Mahi Ma isn't exactly patient though, and I'm inclined to agree with him. There's an old saying, that the only number of people who can keep a secret is one. I trust my crews, but whatever this hub is or isn't, I need to know before word leaks out that it exists.

We jumped the Centaur back to Interworlds. I knew that factory was well supplied, and figured it would have built up a decent inventory. It had, but unfortunately it was enough inventory to have attracted a Split trader in a Boa transport, who bought them out while I was about ten clicks from the docking clamps. I was furious. Even more so when the Split trader set a course for Paranid space. Buying the computers out from under me was one thing. Selling them off to Paranids was over the line. I flew into Paranid space to wait, looking forward to dealing with any Paranid that tried to intervene.

I got good news while I waited. One of my freighters found about half of what Mahi Ma needed at a factory in OmLy. I got better news when the Split trader agreed that his life was worth more than his freight and spewed computer components and a shipment of missiles and guns I wasn't even looking for into space. One of his escort pilots gave up in disgust and abandoned a Jaguar scout ship that made icing on the cake. Putting candles on the cake we blew up four Paranid customs and border control agents who came sniffing around.

Between the salvage and the shipment my freighter had picked up there were more than enough components for Mahi Ma's needs. I transferred the goods to the Centaur and contacted my little genius friend. He sent the Discoverer out to scout the hub to ensure our safe arrival. My secret transit hub is apparently not as far off the track as I had thought, since the scanners revealed a wild dogfight between at least two Kha'ak clusters and a Xenon task force. They weren't near the gate though, so we jumped in and made for the docks.

With the automated systems off line we stacked computer components, by hand, in the docking bay. Mahi Ma looked on appreciatively, occasionally muttering over one piece or another. "The Boron is sure these will do admirably," he said as the final crate thumped to the deck.

"Good," I replied, wiping sweat.

"Everything else the Boron will have to build from scratch." I looked at him. "I will need some raw microchips. Five hundred cases should do."

I exploded. "Five hundred cases! Look, for all I know Bala Gi keeps microchips in his pantry with the wheat flakes and you guys eat them for breakfast, but where in hell do you think I'm going to get five hundred cases of microchips?"

"The Boron has no idea, but you did much better than you expected finding these." He waved a few tentacles at the stacked crates. "The Boron is sure you will do admirably."

I was back on the Centaur when I realized he had said exactly the same thing about me as he had said about the computer components. Off we went, to try to 'do admirably'. What else could we do?

Interlude-An Alternative Point of View

Marika Jerrigan clicked off the com. The smile remained on her face. Her sister-in-law was also her best friend, and seeing her so happy made Marika happy. Being married to her brother, Endy, had frequently presented Jennit with hard times. For that matter being Endy's sister hadn't always made life easy. Now Endy was settled, running a hugely successful business, and everyone was better off for it.

Endy. She called him 'the teflon man' because nothing ever seemed to stick to him. The ready grin, the earnest face, the calm reasonable voice that could get away with saying anything. Black sheep of the family. Well, blackest sheep anyway. Her parents didn't exactly boast about her either. At least they hadn't, but times had changed for her just as much as they had for Endy.

When Endy had announced that he was going spaceside their father had exploded. "Space is for pirates. You plan to be a pirate?"

That grin had flashed as Endy replied. "Don't worry dad. I know pirates and I'm no pirate." Lost in the clever word play was the true statement that should have set off all alarms; _I know pirates._

Endy knew pirates, because somehow Endy seemed to know everybody, and everybody knew Endy. A pirate with a stolen ship? He knew Endy. A shipyard worker with a gambling debt? He knew Endy. The casino owner that wanted his money? He knew Endy. Next thing you know the ship was being recycled and everyone had money. All three were happier...because they knew Endy. He wasn't a criminal, but he didn't see the law as a narrow path either.

That...flexibility...had led to scrapes with law enforcement, but as with most problems nothing ever stuck to Endy. The scrapes with the lawless were sometimes more of a problem. Even if they liked Endy, pirates were sometimes pragmatic about who knew what about them. At the worst of those times Endy's best friend growing up, Patrick Henry, had always been there for him. Nothing like a fighter pilot in the Argon defense fleet to resolve problems with pirates.

When Marika told their parents about her own plans to move spaceside their father exploded again. He thought men went to space to be pirates. What he thought young women went to space to be she didn't want to know, though she had a good guess. Fortunately their father had been more furious with Endy for 'leading her astray' than with her. She shook her head at the memory. Truth be told a crush on Patrick had more to do with her move than her brother did.

She got over the crush, got a job, got some inventory control software training, got a better job; did pretty well for herself though her parents never acknowledged that. She was a good worker, a good citizen, a good person...but, she knew Endy. There had been times that being his sister had turned into meeting people that had turned into side work. Never illegal, really, but not necessarily things you added to your resume. Now she had a job too good to believe, and no resume had been required. Now she worked for Patrick.

Beryl Perod came into her office. Beryl was chief of the flight crew. His military background showed in his posture as well as how quickly he had answered her summons. "We need to move the ships," she said. "You'll be docked at the trading station."

"Will you be staying aboard?"

"No. Documentation will be docking here. I'll be in that office for a while."

"Very good. I'll send the orderly to transfer anything you'll need to the dockside lockers." He turned precisely and left.

Marika wondered what her father would think. His little girl running an interstellar trading company from an office suite aboard a ship designed as a military transport, refitted as a luxurious office complex. Two ships actually. Identical. A six room living and office suite for her on each of them. In the crushing lack of space planetside how much would a suite like this cost? How big a company would she have to be running for them to provide a suite like this? With another just like it so that one or the other would always be hers, but the other would be just standing empty?

The two Magnetars served as headquarters for a very fluid shipping business. This ship, Accounting, handled invoicing, transactions, payroll, and pilot training for an ever changing fleet of traders. Currently there were ten ships, all assigned to the energy trade, running from Heretic's End to Black Hole Sun. Her staff were very well paid and enjoyed living conditions that even their exceptional salaries could not have covered, the tradeoff being that they lived aboard and the terms of employment included a 'mobility clause'. The entire company could leave Omicron Lyrae at a word from Patrick. A word they all knew would come sooner or later.

The company logo, emblazoned on the ships and gracing the letterhead, was a stylish ISC. Funny thing about using letters, no one really asked what they stood for. The employees all knew it was 'Interim Shipping Company'. They filled voids in the shipping industry, profitably and temporarily, until Patrick could put something more permanent in place to take advantage of the opportunity. The possibility that the next opportunity could be literally anywhere was the reason they had ships instead of leasing an office block somewhere.

Some time later she stood in the docking pod, admiring the ISC logo on the bow as Documents slid into the clamps. The staff aboard Documents included some of the best hands in the field of working through the maze of paperwork created by the Department of Mercenary Vessels. Some experts believed that at least twenty percent of all DMV registrations were hacked to some degree or another, and her staff were skilled at that too. The data shufflers at the DMV had neither the skills or the interest to separate the intentionally hacked documents from the documents they accidentally screwed up themselves on a regular basis.

She also employed experts at negotiating the salvage laws of all the major governments. Patrick kept them busy. When a task exceeded their collective skills they turned to one of the best DMV hackers in the universe. Her.

"What's up?" she asked without ceremony as she walked into the office of her Director of Teladi Operations.

"More of an oddity than a problem," he said. The request from Patrick was pretty routine and it's already been processed so no problem there..."

"What was it?"

"Salvage titling on an Osprey, in Teladi space. Pure routine. Title already exists with the Argon though, but the ship was disposed of at a Teladi shipyard with no questions."

"No Argon police reports?"

"Not yet. Patrick did post the request through the urgent channel so there might be eventually."

"Not documented to us with the Teladi? Personally to him I hope. He has connections. He can fade the heat."

"That's where it got strange. Documented third party..."

"He's done that before."

"Not to a third party like this one. Company registration. Boron. I did a ping back." He met her eyes.

Marika shook her head, but smiled. Her staff were the best, and the best always dug in to find things that they didn't really need to know. That was part of what made them the best. "Okay, a Boron company. So?"

"The ping echoed back from all three gates."

As far as Marika knew that wasn't possible, and Marika knew quite a bit. "Just where is this Boron company?"

"I couldn't tell. But it appears you can get there no matter what gate you take out of OmLy."

Marika kept her composure and tried to look like this was exactly what she expected. What the hell had Patrick gotten himself into now?

What I had gotten into was trying to fund Mahi Ma's huge pile of chips. I was approached about salvaging the Osprey, and frankly I stole it. But technically it was salvaged by a Boron salvage company before I got to it. That company sold it to a Teladi shipyard before I had a chance to report to my employer that their contract could not be fulfilled. There's a huge murky area at the intersection of Argon law, which applies because the original owners are Argon; Teladi law, which applies because the ship was abandoned in Teladi space; and Boron law, which applies because the salvaging company is Boron. In that murky area whole fleets of ships can disappear, and often do.

This one disappeared pretty thoroughly. The Teladi certainly recognized that a Boron salvage company registered into existence mere minutes before wasn't selling them a ship without some sort of strings attached, so they probably moved that ship through a dozen transactions before I even cleared the sector. Mahi Ma got all the proper paperwork settled for the company, but there's no way anyone is going to be knocking on the door of our headquarters to ask questions any time soon, since that headquarters is somewhere in non-space. And as for me, I can indeed fade the heat. When I told my contact at Argon intel that I might have a legal problem and explained the situation he nearly fell out of his chair laughing.

"They sent you to salvage a Teladi corvette, in Teladi space...that has to be five million credits...and they offered a salvage fee of two hundred thousand. This must be an insurance scam because they had to know there was no way you would bring that ship back. You'd be laughed out of the salvage industry. I'll take care of it."

That was no doubt the last words I will ever hear on that subject. Of course his next words were "as long as you're here..."

So I found myself delivering a covert ops team to the Argon facility in Black Hole Sun. Probably for their final operational briefings, but I don't know for sure. If they had told me they'd probably have had to kill me.

No one had to tell me there was a Xenon invasion going on in Black Hole Sun. I figured that right out all by myself. Nobody told me, and it still nearly killed me.

The six cahoona bakeries in BHS are pumping credits into all three of my companies. The Xenon invasion threatened Argon lives, and my credits. I felt compelled to do something about it.

The Centaur made very short work of Xenon interceptor Ms, and short enough work of L fighters. Unfortunately there were two task forces of Xenon, each centered on a Q corvette, and there was nothing the Centaur was going to do with them. No nuclear missiles on board. No squash mines. Nowhere near enough firepower to punch through their shields. Barely enough speed to stay out of range of their guns.

If they quit chasing me and started firing on a factory I annoyed them with light missiles. If they got too close to me I used my jump drive to flash across the sector. If a machine can be frustrated, if a machine could be angered, I did it to those two Qs. Eventually my former mates in the Argon fleet managed to show up with a destroyer and put them out of their misery, and mine.

I need a bigger ship.

I didn't have the funds to buy one. I was close. Very close. Had I not put the sale of the Osprey into Mahi Ma's project fund I'd have been there. Had I not bought mining equipment to start Mineral Fortune Mining and Supply I'd have been there. But I wasn't there. Then since I was so close I did something silly. I didn't learn the lesson and immediately buy heavy torpedoes and squash mines. I figured I'd just save the credits and be in a frigate sooner for it.

The next thing I knew the Centaur and I were running around leading a frigate full of mad cows all over Interworlds. Same sad story. Barely enough speed to stay out of range, not enough firepower to punch through their shields, couldn't leave them alone to destroy valuable customers. Eventually a Colossus carrier came along and made short work of them.

I really need a bigger ship.

Ninu Keswen was hot. I don't mean in the beautiful woman oozing sexuality sense, though she is. I mean in the fry an egg on her forehead I'm glad I'm talking to her over a comlink and not in the same room sense. Can't say I blame her.

At least she knows I didn't hire her for her looks, since she actually started working for me as an e-cell pilot at ISC and it was Marika who hired her. The trouble started when I took on partners for Waste Lands Power Crystals. I chose my partners from the pilots at ISC, the two most qualified at the time. They brought Ninu, who hadn't been with me as long, along with them and put her in charge of silicon management. When I started putting my mining company together she was the obvious choice to run it, and I told her so. She packed up and moved to Treasure Chest as soon as the facilities were built, ready to go to work and make us both a pile of credits. My partners at WLPC weren't happy to see her go, and were even less happy that she was taking the silicon trade and its revenue stream with her.

Then I disappeared, leaving her with an irritable Split station transporter captain and a handful of inbound ships with pilots who had been told they may or may not be being reassigned pending interviews...interviews I was supposed to be there to give. Ninu could interview them and take on who she wants, but I have other companies I need to consider and told her I had to be there. So they wait. The fact that I had had two invasions to fend off gained me some slack, but not much.

I figured the first thing to do was deal with the Split. He is a jerk, and it was unfair to stick her with him. The local shipyard couldn't provide the high capacity mining stations I wanted, so I had turned to a Split source and hired this finhead to deliver them. In the course of this transaction I had tolerated his arrogance and abuse while my temper slowly eroded. When our business should have been complete he started complaining about how our contract had terminated with him stuck so far from Split space, claiming that I should pay him for the return journey. I had lost my temper at that point, but only internally. On the outside I was totally calm. The guys I served in combat with would have probably warned the Split at that point.

I hired him for an additional job, building a large complex. I told him I had some details to work out and left him there in TC. Unfortunately I got sidetracked and Ninu suffered the consequences of his company. And of course I haven't done anything about the large complex I am supposed to be planning. I don't actually have any large complex to plan. But I got the Split captain on the com and spun him a tale. Stations would be delivered by Mammoth. With the agility demonstrated by his ship and his skills he would be tasked with placing them, and paid very well for it. I gave him the coordinates and sent him on his way to meet the fictional Mammoths. My only regret is that when my Mercs board his ship and sell him to the rehab facility I won't be able to rub it in personally.

With that out of the way Ninu's mood improved slightly, but turned back to full heat when I told her I had a lot on my plate but would be there as soon as I could.

All three of my salvage freighters were full in the aftermath of the battles. Full of mixed loads of cargo that had been spilled by freighters, arms from destroyed invaders and defenders, and some just plain junk that had gotten scooped indiscriminately into their holds in the rush. I also had abandoned ships to claim, one a very valuable Paranid Hades bomber. That was my first priority, angry partner at the mines or not.

I also had my cattle business in a complete shambles. At one point the Paranids had focused their attack on a cattle ranch and I decided to pull out my assets. Argon dock workers had piled aboard hulks never meant to move and set out on autopilot for the next sector. These refugees, complete with loads of cattle, were docked at my crystal company in Waste Lands, totally disrupting the supply network side of my cattle business as well as being in the way. My cattle business still isn't working all that well, so just sending them back to where they were isn't all that attractive a move.

I promised Ninu I would be ready to get the mining company up and running as soon as the ship I had picked out for a jump fuel tank arrived and got to work on the other issues. She snapped "Perfect, I'll be here," as the com link blanked out. Just to be on the safe side I told my pilot to take command of the Centaur and set course for the mines, then retired to my cabin to work out all these kinks. Anything he does short of crashing into an asteroid I can just ignore.  
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**Chapter 6**

Kleo Keppel docked his battered Discoverer at the trading station. The little scout craft had been abandoned during a battle and written off by the military, and he had salvaged it for himself in the aftermath. It was a serviceable runabout. He could have flown directly to his destination, but there was very limited docking at the cahoona bakery, so he caught a civilian shuttle. A crowded civilian shuttle; so much the better.

As he stepped off the shuttle he hoped he blended in with the crowd, but knew he wouldn't. His haircut and posture fairly screamed 'military'. Most of the passengers were headed for the Revolution, a dinner and dance club which had become one of _the_ hot spots of Omicron Lyrae; generally considered too expensive by military personnel but frequented by some officers. Too public for his purposes. He boarded a lift to level seven and headed for the Level Seven Lounge, a quiet pub frequented almost exclusively by the locals.

When he entered the dimly lit bar he saw that Patrick had no trouble with blending in. With his hair grown out over his collar and his beard he was clearly not military. Kleo recognized that the goatee was neatly trimmed to not interfere with an emergency rebreather mask, marking Patrick as a pilot, but doubted that most people would realize that. He slid into the opposite side of the booth, noting that Patrick had chosen a seat with his back to a wall and a view of the door.

"Thanks for coming Kleo," he said.

"Wouldn't miss it, but thanks for being discreet."

"I take it that associating with me wouldn't be a good career move?"

"Something like that, though I haven't exactly been making good career moves anyway. But I don't get it. You get run out of the service, there's this huge scandal about the lost Elite which you didn't help by promptly getting rich, rumor has it you've been working for the Terrans and there's even official word you might be a Terran spy so talking to you would get me on a watch list if I were noted. Then you saunter into the shipyard and deliver a state of the art Hades bomber to military analysis. Something doesn't add up."

"They paid me for the bomber."

"Anyone would have paid you for the bomber. Hell, if you were a Terran spy why wouldn't you take it to them? They'd have paid you just as well."

"You didn't think I was a Terran spy?"

"Of course not. I knew you weren't a Terran spy. Too much the patriot. All dirtborn are a bit on the loudly loyal side, but you were always beyond most of them even."

Patrick shook his head. "Dirtborn? Y'know, if I socked you in the head when the cops came you'd have more explaining to do than I would." Then he laughed.

Kleo laughed too. "Okay. Let's say those of planetside heritage are generally more patriotic than us spaceheads and leave it at that." It was a fact of life in the military that everyone wanted to fight, all the time. If there was no immediate enemy to fight thay would squabble amongst themselves, with the clear division between the 'dirtborn' and the 'spaceheads' providing one of many opportunities.

"Is that what got you flying a desk? Someone doubting your spacehead loyalty?"

"No." Kleo's mirth evaporated. "Not loyalty, just reliability."

"Uh oh. Let me take a wild guess. Failure to follow an order with only the flimsy excuse that the order was glaringly stupid."

"Nah. I followed plenty of glaringly stupid orders. Unfortunately I decided that the fleet has a glaringly stupid SSP and I tried to get it changed."

Patrick shook his head. "Standards of strategic policy come from flag level, hell they come from huge office blocks full of military analysts with ten times our education. You thought that just because you actually shoot at people who shoot back they would listen to you?" At that they both had to laugh, though Kleo perhaps slightly more on the bitter side.

"Yeah I know. Dumb. They did listen though. Bomber SSP is under review. Since you're a civilian and I'm flying a desk we might both live long enough to see it change."

"I take it that whatever you did to get busted to a desk worked too well to get you kicked straight out of the service. What did you do?"

"The Xenon started building...something...not too far from the Black Hole Sun gate. A task force went in to destroy it. Couple destroyers, a carrier with a fighter wing, bomber group escort... You know the drill."

"Sure. SSP says the destroyers close and burn the target, carrier provides damage relief and rearming for the fighter wing which provides cover against enemy fighters and missiles, bomber group takes out enemy capital ships at range if possible or at least does enough damage that our capitals are at heavy advantage when they engage."

"Right. Well, for months I'd been telling anyone who would listen..."

"Which was nobody."

"Well, yeah. I'd been trying to tell them that a bomber group could take out a stationary target quicker, from range, than the destroyers could, and save everyone the trouble."

"That makes way too much sense. How did they brush that off?"

"Missile cost and availability. Tomahawks aren't cheap. What they refuse to take into account is that the tomahawks get shot off anyway when the enemy capitals show up."

"Let me guess...they are citing the one time out of the blue when no enemy capitals show up and the whole business gets done with a flash of the big lasers at no cost."

"Well, that and I think Admirals actually love flying around in big carrier task groups making things go boom."

"I hesitate to ask, but what did you do?"

"The task group went through the gate out of BHS. We were reforming; standard formation on the carrier. The place was crawling with the machines. I think the construction was just bait. I couldn't even count the hostiles."

"Capitals?"

"Just fighters, a few corvettes. Our fighters were going to take a beating."

"And?"

"So I blew up the target."

Patrick raised an eyebrow. "You did. By yourself?"

"Yeah. Shot half the load as fast as I could. A hundred tomahawks. I figure the enemy fighters intercepted between half and three quarters."

Patrick whistled. "That leaves somewhere between twenty-five and fifty on the target."

"Construction wasn't complete. I don't know what it had for shield generators. Somewhere around twelve hits and it went up. They were coming too close together for a really accurate count. Then the 'hawks started locking on big chunks of the wreckage and pulverized that. Remember that mission briefing, where Sid bumped into the table..."

"And that target model they were going to use for the brief fell and shattered into a million pieces?"

"Yeah. It was a lot like that."

"Holy shit."

"Yeah."

"So then what?"

"Nothing else for it. Mission objective complete. Destroyers never fired a shot. Fighters never got close enough to engage. We were still right in front of the gate. We left."

"Wow. So I take it the Admiral didn't have enough sense to claim credit for this strategic breakthrough."

"Of course not. He was in an absolute rage. It was all my squadron commander could do to keep him from having me up for court martial."

"Hilarious. I can see that court session. 'Captain Keppel, is it true that in an insubordinate fashion you single-handedly completed the task force mission without loss of life, leaving the Admiral's destroyers with nothing to do?' Probably would have spent the rest of your life in the brig."

"Yeah."

"I gotta tell ya Kleo, civilian life is pretty darn good."

"If you steal a ship to supplement your mustering out pay." Kleo glared a challenge at his old shipmate.

Patrick glared back, then shrugged. "Yeah, that certainly helps."

"You really did steal that Elite!"

"Well, not exactly. I put it in a position of risk. The guy who actually stole it has been...generous. He gave me a very good job."

"Terrans?"

"Don't be insulting. It never left the sector. Hell, it's probably still in the fleet. It went into the refurbish and recycle queue at the shipyard."

"But you have been working for the Terrans."

"Yeah. Boldly going where no other Argon has been allowed to go."

Kleo's eyes widened as the pieces fell into place. "You are a spy, but you're spying _on_ the Terrans, not for them."

"I never said that."

"Roger that. So why are we talking?"

I funneled the money from selling the Hades into Waste Lands Power Crystals. Kleo submitted his resignation, mustered out, then took a job with them. I gave him a lift to the shipyard in Cloud Base SE, where he bought a shiny new Gladiator bomber. WLPC can afford to keep him in tomahawks, even if he gets creative with them..

The stop in OmLy had been required when the Hades had autopiloted itself into the shipyard. Even blaring a 'captured vessel do not fire' message on all frequencies may not have kept Argon security from blasting my prize, so I had to be there. Turning over the state of the art Paranid bomber to Argon engineers had got me thinking about bombers, which had led me to stop at bomber command where I ran into Kleo. Having my own bomber, with a crackerjack pilot, would solve a lot of problems. What it wasn't going to solve was my problem with Ninu Keswen. That I hoped would be solved by hopping in the Discoverer and flying hell bent for leather for Treasure Chest.

I was relieved to see the battered Demeter pulling into a docking clamp as I approached the station. I had said I would be here when it arrived, and here I was. Ninu standing in the docking pod tapping her foot was a less encouraging sight, although the leg attached to the tapping foot was an attraction. Suddenly I had a flash of an idea about what it might be like to be married; having a beautiful woman waiting for me, and being half afraid to get off the ship and hear what she had to say.

So I popped the cockpit hatch and hopped out, half hopeful and half wishing I was somewhere else. I cheerfully said, "I saw the Demeter pulling in. That's our fuel tank. Looks like I'm just in time."

She looked at me with those eyes, and said, "I decided to move it to a different set of clamps. Since it won't be moving I wanted it as far out of the way as possible. It's been here more than long enough to see the first place we docked it wasn't ideal."

I really wanted to say something clever that might get me off the bulls-eye that I had clearly landed on. Instead I said, "Oh."

"It's been here long enough to figure out that the second place wasn't great either, but I'm pretty sure we've got it now."

I said, "Oh," again. I was considering how cowardly I would look if I broke for the Disco and just signed the whole mining business over to her. But I couldn't turn away from her eyes, except maybe to look down at her body, and I didn't even want to think about the consequences of that.

"I left a good job to come here, and I wasn't making any money. You had two big ships charging e-cells to our account and going nowhere. I know you wanted to be here for interviews, but I put everyone you sent here to work. I had Marika hire some new guys for a couple of the simpler tasks. Then I found out you had half a dozen ships with pilots just hanging around at WLPC, so I hired some of them. Two of them are going to need jump drives. They are at the trading station, running a tab and waiting for you." She tossed a memory chip. "Here's all the routing assignments as I worked them out, _partner_." She spun on a heel and stalked out of the docking pod. I'm sure I was supposed to be ashamed of how badly I was holding up my end of our partnership...and I was...but I was too busy watching her to really think much about it.

I thought about saying 'wait'. I thought about saying 'thanks'. The hatch slammed behind her, and I said "Oh." I crawled into the Disco and set course for the trading station, and commed the Magnetar to meet me there. I popped the memory chip in and reviewed the assignments she had made. Probably couldn't have done it any better myself. I might be in love, which will surely do me no good at all.

Despite having implied to Kleo Keppel that I am spying on the Terrans, I'm not. Argon intelligence has moved on, leaving my operation so far back on the burners that my services are no longer required. As far as we are concerned the crisis over the 'new terraformer menace' has passed. The Terrans have traced them back to the Split, so the shadow of suspicion is removed from Argon-Terran relations. The captured Split scientist leads to some other Terran colony that they have lost contact with, which will reduce Terran concerns about our space even further.

Which left me with the question of what to do. The Admiral said that he could arrange for me to be returned to active duty, with a suitably good performance evaluation to cover the period I served in intel, but I opted to just get my discharge upgraded to honorable and go my way. And for the moment my way leads back to the Terrans. They aren't a problem, at least for now, but I have come too far to turn away.

So I set off into Terran space to check in with Pearle, leaving my businesses to run themselves for a while.

I found Pearle at the shipyard in Mars orbit, and learned that the Terrans had finally broken the Split scientist's resistance. I didn't comment on how long it had taken compared to Argon intelligence draining the captive dry during one brief flight. Having been a guest of Argon intel himself I doubt that Pearle would appreciate their efficiency. Certainly no point in revealing that Argon intel knew everything Pearle knew either.

This was part of the reason Argon intel had ended the Terran operation so abruptly. The Terrans just aren't a realistic threat. Their technology is first rate, but they have no experience or will. Old Earth's response to the Xenon threat, which they were responsible for in the first place, was to destroy the gate between their home system and the threat. The fact that this left the rest of the universe, including their own colonists, to deal with the problem did not bother them then and doesn't seem to even occur to them now. There's a quote; some ancient Earth philosopher from around the time when space flight began. He said "The Earth is the cradle of the mind, but man cannot grow up in a cradle." The descendents of Old Earth diverged at Brennan's destroyed gate. The Argon grew up hard and fast in a hostile universe. The Terrans went back to the cradle and hid.

The question Argon intel had not thought to ask occurred to me now though. What about this Aldrin colony; previously lost and now apparently found? They are too far removed to be a concern themselves, but what will contact with them do to the Terrans?

To see for myself I offered to join the Terran fleet for another operation. They had a target, Martin Winters, a cryo preserved vestige of old Earth. They had a location, their lost Aldrin colony. They had recently developed the means by inserting a jump beacon into the Aldrin sector. And of course, being Terrans, they had a massive battle fleet. Apparently having learned nothing from being reconnected with the Argon they were about to make a spectacularly bad first impression on the Aldrin civilization, however it has evolved in their absence.

We made the jump, and I immediately guessed the Terrans would again be outmatched. The Argon branch of humanity had been cut off in the crucible of a vast and dangerous universe, but with a terraformed planet to start from had tamed that universe. The Aldrin branch of humanity had been cut off as well, but their crucible was not a universe, it was a lifeless rock. Their only enemy had been the endless cold of space, which could never be tamed, only survived. These people, if any remained, were going to be very hard.

They had enemies now though. Martin Winters had introduced them to the Xenon.

As soon as my Discoverer was settled into normal space I hit my comlink and my Magnetar and my Centaur emerged from non-space to join me. The Terran commander was glad of it, as a small squadron of Xenon and the strange terraformer ships was headed our way. His response and the brief skirmish reenforced my point. This opposition was nothing more than a recon squad and we had a major battle fleet...more like three major battle fleets...and the Terrans were relieved to see any sort of support!

In my military service I was an interceptor pilot. I had an adequate if unspectacular record, but make no claims to being highly skilled. Kleo Keppel would offer the excuse that being dirtborn gave me a late start, and point out that he destroyed a Xenon scout ship when he was twelve with a missile he had made for a school science project. In this 'major engagement', as I'm sure the Terrans thought of it, I was the only pilot with multiple confirmed kills despite the fact that it never even occurred to me to transport out of the Discoverer. Had I gotten into my Nova or brought in the Centaur I would have had to ask the Terrans to stay out of it to even make it interesting. Their pilots might develop some skills if they ever had to, but they never participate in any real battles, where the opposition actually has a chance.

I'm glad I surrounded Beryl Hopkins with hardened Nova pilots when I put him in charge of security at GoE.

A short time later we met our first Aldrinite...Aldrinian...well, his name was too long to figure out and I have no idea what to call him, but he identified himself as head of the Aldrin Security Forces. He reacted quite smoothly in the face of the overwhelming numbers of the Terran fleet. I suspect 'the enemy of my enemy is my friend' had stood the test of time in Aldrin just as well as it did everywhere else.

After a surprisingly short meeting between the fleet admiral and the Aldrin security chief, the fleet set course for a distant speck identified as the main CPU ship of Aldrin. Never breaking from its original programming, the CPU ship had served the Aldrin civilization since its founding. I suddenly realized just how distant that distant speck was, and how immense it had to be. This great servant and shepherd had been hijacked by Martin Winters, and the magnanimous Terrans had agreed to get it back.

The Admiral showed up on my comlink. His thinking was that with my experience with the Xenon I was an ideal candidate to lead an assault team onto the CPU ship. I transferred to a troop transport, took one look at the squad of Terran marines, and my experience with the Xenon told me this was a suicide mission. Something in my response offended the team leader and I had to disarm him. My experience in any number of barracks brawls and bar fights told me I would be best served if I disarmed the rest of them, and with a curt 'ship command, zero gravity, lock ship command to my voice' that had them flailing as they floated off the deck I proceeded to do so. They had completed endless training protocols, but had never faced any opposition that wasn't following those protocols. I half expected one of them to say 'you cheated' and start blubbering like a child. Clearly, a suicide mission.

We were still at least twenty minutes flight time short of the CPU ship, and I had to come up with something. I would have been fine with just blowing it to bits despite the Terran admiral's promise to return it, but I guessed that sort of rampant insubordination would have to be a last resort, and I did have an ace up my sleeve. The Magnetar blinked out in a flash of energy, and reappeared moments later belching a Discoverer from her hangers. As soon as she was within range Mahi Ma was beamed onto my transport and the Discoverer dutifully turned back for the Magnetar.

"The Boron was very busy!" sputtered the little squid. "And you have been very slow with those microchips!"

"I know, I know, but I didn't think you would want to miss this chance."

"What chance is that?"

I stepped aside so he could see out the main bridge ports, where the giant CPU ship floated against an asteroid field backdrop. "I need you to hack that."

The Terran marines were still cutting through the hull when a broadband comm from the CPU ship politely asked "How may this unit be of service?" I don't know if ancient terraformers always referred to themselves in third person, or if that was a calling card from Mahi Ma.


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 7**

After gathering up the so called marines we joined the parade back towards the cluster of stations we had discovered. I was thinking of them as the central area of the Aldrin colony, but have since learned otherwise.

It turns out the colony is scattered around the huge barren planetoid pretty much uniformly. I found that my viewpoint has shifted. I used to look at a sector and see problems in setting up patrols and defenses. Now I see the opportunities and difficulties of trade. Maybe this has less to do with me than it has to do with Aldrin itself. The sector is so far off the track that defense presents no problem, and even if it did their stations are predominantly built with archaic technology that leaves them burrowed into asteroids. Shielding is great, but solid rock is hard to beat. On the other hand, the distance between producers and their markets is such a problem that I might have seen it even when I was just a fighter pilot in the fleet. As a trader it almost made me dizzy.

The Admiral was closeted in seemingly endless meetings with the Aldrin authorities. The fleet was patrolling and hoping for his return, but Winters was long gone. I was enjoying my new command for as long as it lasts. The Scabbard is a fine troop transport, but in keeping with the Terran state of mind it has a level of luxury more in keeping with a passenger cruiser. It even came with entertainment, as I could watch the squad of marines going through their drills in their training facilities. They had taken to having the gravity generators, lighting, and atmosphere pressure cycling randomly during their training periods, and the results were often hilarious.

I occasionally accepted their requests to join in and show them some 'down south tricks' as they called them. They're eager enough, and it occurs to me that a squad of Terran marines with no loyalties in the commonwealth one way or the other might be useful. The questions are whether they would be willing to leave Terran space and service, whether I can afford the investment to get them properly trained, and whether they would survive that training.

Before that issue came to a head though the talks were completed, at least as much as the Admiral could complete them on behalf of the Terran government. The Scabbard was called upon to transport the Aldrin delegation to Earth. I relished the opportunity, not only because it got me to Earth, but it gave me a chance to explore the Aldrin position for the upcoming talks. While I ended up with the same conclusions about the Terrans as Argon intel has, I have serious doubts for the future. The influence of the hardy colonists of Aldrin are going to make the Terrans far more formidable than they are now. Not in a day, and not in a year or even a decade, but a hundred years from now the balance across Heretic's End will be much different than it is today.

Earth, as one would expect, is a fine looking planet. It has a planet girdling space station that they call The Torus that is certainly an impressive sight. Overall though I would just as soon visit Argon Prime.

The Terrans were grateful for my contribution to reuniting them with their lost colony. They let me keep my honorary rank in their armed forces, which entitled me to the Scabbard and associated security detail, which I figured could protect me against any group of Split hatchlings we ran across as long as there weren't too many. Beyond that I'd be on my ownThey also gave me command of a Terran bomber which I deemed even more useless. Kleo Keppel was having enough trouble finding tomahawk missiles. The Terran equivalent, the Phantom missile, I couldn't even guess where to look for but I was sure it would involve Terran space so I sold the bomber at the first shipyard we came to.

On the long flight out of Terran space I had time to take a hard look at my assets.

Marika Jerrigan had served me well at ISC. Perhaps too well. No matter what oddball ship I salvaged or bought from passing strangers whose own claim might be a bit shady, she managed all the paperwork to get me clear title. By the time the ship docked at the nearest station its ownership was completely settled so that it would present no problems, and I could just forget about it. Which I routinely did. So I found myself with a bewildering array of combat ships, mostly with no guns or shields; plus another list of battered freighters of all sizes and shapes, many with odd bits of cargo that would have to be purged for them to actually be used.

I also had three fully equipped Mercury Tankers with highly trained pilots that I had pulled off the energy trade when I built the mining company. I had no idea what to apply them to next, and I had five brand new tankers at the shipyard in OmLy that I had even less of a clue what to do with. My various companies controlled distribution of all major resources in the region except cloth. ISC would have to trade in cloth or finished tech products, all small and expensive markets, or else it was time to move them out of the region entirely.

Ninu had the mineral business moving well. Credits were accumulating. Energy cells were flowing through the western sectors of the region, and building up in our storage holds. We were also building an inventory of ore, which was being bought as cheaply as we could have mined it ourselves. Oddly, the only flaw in the system seemed to be in silicon distribution. We had no stock. Scanning the region I saw numerous potential buyers, but could not believe that we would need to start producing. The local mines should be enough. Then I realized that Ninu had not completely put aside her previous commitment to making WLPC her first priority. They had more than enough inventory, but were still pulling in the bulk of the regional supply.

I punched her code into the coms while looking at the figures, not getting completely clear in my head what I needed to say to correct the situation. I usually manage to have these meetings pretty much off the cuff and get things sorted out, but didn't count on the effect it would have when her face came up on the screen. Before I could gather my limited wits she was apologizing. I was running about ten words behind and had a hard time getting what exactly she was apologizing for, but I recognized that whatever it was it was was going better for me than our last meeting had been.

Eventually she wound down and I caught up. The gist of it apparently was that once the credits had started rolling in she had concluded that even though I wasn't exactly an active partner in running things I had put up the money and it was my idea, so she was grateful...and sorry she had been so tough on me. I was thinking I could spin this conversation into a really positive direction when she lowered the boom on everything I had in mind.

"Besides, you're the first boss I ever had that didn't think being my boss meant trying to sleep with me, and I really appreciate that," she said.

So I suggested that she work out a priority scale for WLPC that would allow more silicon to enter the market rather than filling their warehouse quite so fast and cut the link.

One good thing about having ships scattered the length of the region was being able to tap into the market data in every sector. I scanned through, and saw places where cahoonas had run low enough that they should be getting deliveries. I also saw that WLPC had their cavernous cahoona storage very nearly full. This meant one of three things. Possibly my two partners needed another cahoona delivery ship, or even more than one. Possibly my two partners, who actually had taken the delivery of cahoonas as their own jobs, were goofing off. Or possibly I just found someone to take out my frustrations on since either or both of them could have been considered Ninu's boss when she worked at WLPC.

As I stewed on this I saw the cahoona spot price drop at the Satellite Factory in Interworlds. I accessed a ship I had docked there, pausing briefly to wonder what that was costing me in docking fees, and found that the other ship in the docking bay was a _Paranid Food Hauler_ which had apparently beaten my guys to the sale. Looking at the sector map I noted that Endy Sahkarna's ship was in the sector, and in fact showed as inbound for the satellite factory. I punched his code into the com unit, nearly breaking my fingers.

"Hey Patrick!" chirped from the com unit. "I suppose you saw that we passed the seven million credit mark."

"I did see that. I also saw a three credit price drop at the station you are headed for that cost us twenty two fifty, and we're lucky we still have a sale. If the dealer that beat you to them hadn't been flying a Hermes you'd be stuck with your load." The entire payload on the Hermes had only dropped the price three credits. Had that been a full size freighter it would have cratered the market.

"If he hadn't been flying a Hermes he wouldn't have been fast enough to get there ahead of me. I've been staying one step ahead of him all the way from Wastelands. Probably beat him to four different buyers even though I've had to jump back and forth for loads while he just flew around the sector. Eventually he was going to make a deal."

I sat back with a sigh. Clearly I needed to get a grip before I screwed up a good business over a girl, which would certainly be stupid, especially since she didn't even know I was thinking about her.

"Okay," I said. "The problem is that now there's an empty Paranid food hauler in our territory and he is going to look for a load. The prices we are paying are dirt low, which is great, but I could name twelve cahoona bakeries who would happily sell to this three-eyed competitor." In fact there were twelve cahoona bakeries in the region, and we both knew it. "How do we make sure that if he does buy a load he has to either haul it out of the area or eat it himself?"

He didn't blink, or pause. "Drop our sell price to seventy. Jarren and I put together a proposal on that and sent it to your com. We've been waiting to hear back."

Damn. I remembered something coming in during the skirmish in Aldrin, or maybe during the attack on the CPU ship. Either way I had routed it to my pending file and forgotten all about it. Feeling well over the border into stupid territory I told him to put that change in, and if it turned out to not be enough they should add another distribution freighter...and to just let me know they were doing it rather than waiting for my approval.

Feeling mostly defeated I took a look at the cattle business. Over five million in the account there as well, finally. I shrugged to myself and commed Endy Jerrigan at the wheat farm in Elysium of Light.

"Tell me some good news," I said to my old friend.

"We have seven million credits in the bank, could probably add another production unit and still not build up any inventory to speak of, and a lot of people in the shipping business are wondering why a fighter pilot thought of this system before they did. How's that?"

"Good start. If my system is so good how come the only place it's really working smoothly is there?"

"Well, because I'm your best friend and I'm a genius, and you put me in charge."

"So I need more genius best friends? Or do I put you in charge of everything?"

Endy visibly recoiled from the com link. "Me in charge of everything? No way old friend. We hit this wheat thing out of the park because your system does work...and because we are dealing in wheat which is chronically short. Me being a genius or not has nothing to do with it."

"Ah, so maybe that 'genius' bit was a bit of a reach? And my system may not have all that much to do with it either."

"Patrick, you are making a killing dealing Argnu beef. Not as much as we're making here, but great Gunne man, Argnu beef! Do you have any idea how many traders have lost their ass...ets trading in Argnu beef? And you've got a ton of profit piled up at the crystal plant despite the fact that those clowns also stocked up ten million in inventory, at least. As far as being your best friend, the only advantage that gives me is that I have a pretty good idea what I can do myself and what you would have to have a say in. I've been trying to help the other guys out on that front as best I could, because they don't know you like I do."

I considered the apology from Ninu and her self assured decision making in this new light. "I wish you had told Jarren and Endy to just make the price change they wanted to make," I said.

"Yeah, I thought you might. I just don't know enough about the cahoona market, and I have a pretty full plate here..."

I knew that look. Endy had something to suggest. "Out with it Endy," I said.

"Look. I know this guy..."

Of course he does.

-xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx-

**Dateline - Omicron Lyrae.**

Erine Selek reporting for _Inside Biz_.

Patrick Henry, credited by many economists as the force behind the recent surge in space industries across the Omicron Lyrae region, made a rare public appearance this evening. And as he has done throughout his meteoric business career, he shot straight to the top of the celebrity charts.

Henry joined business partner Endy Jerrigen for a lavish dinner at Revolution, OmLy's trendiest club. They were accompanied by Jerrigen's wife Jennit, and Marika Jerrigen; Endy's sister as well as Patrick Henry's partner in another of his businesses. Both ladies wore Tata Su gowns estimated to tip the register in the hundred thousand credit range. Rumors about Marika Jerrigen and the sector's most eligible bachelor began immediately and peaked at number three on the Argon social net's hot topics list, scoring over nine million hits per hour.

The party was transported to the club aboard owner Mikal Poler's private transport yacht, spurring speculation that some sort of meeting between industrialist and restauranteur may have taken place. When he opened the club, built inside an unused grain silo at a struggling cahoona bakery, experts scoffed openly, citing the same hard economic times that had made the silo available as reason to believe 'Poler's Folly' would be bankrupt overnight. How wrong they were.

Industry watchers who track the hospitality and leisure sectors attribute the rapid rise of Revolution as much to timing as Poler's, pardon the expression, revolutionary establishment. The economic boom, spearheaded by Patrick Henry's investments, turned the suffering bakery into a thriving concern that has brought almost 4,000 additional workers spaceside in the interval since the club opened. Property values on the station have climbed rapidly as the periodic layoffs that had previously plagued the industry have become almost non-existent.

Negotiations are said to be underway between Poler and Omicron Cahoonas, the station owners, regarding the lease on the grain silo. "In today's market they could make more using that space than they get from the lease," Poler has said. Experts agree, some saying the company could buy out the lease at up to five times its value and still be ahead.

Poler could perhaps use the windfall to move his club to a more appropriate location. Dining and entertainment facilities aboard industrial stations traditionally are oriented towards the local population. Drawing the rich and famous from across the sector, and in fact the region, Revolution has been plagued by issues with parking nearly from its inception. Of course more conventional space aboard a trading station would be hard to come by for an establishment of that size, and such a move would be strongly opposed by existing businesses.

Dinner was magnificent. Revolution is a remarkable place. The entire club is contained in a drum shaped compartment that fits inside the unused silo. Spurning gravgen units, the structure revolves inside the silo on huge rollers built into the outer skin of the compartment that drive against the inner surface of the silo. Centripetal force, the classic substitute for artificial gravity, holds diners and dancers on the vast and elaborate club floor.

The rich and famous always want to see and be seen, and from any point in Revolution you could see everyone else. The most distant patrons, directly overhead, dangled a scant hundred and fifty meters away. With the 'floor' rising rapidly in both directions no one was hidden in the crowds. Bartenders poured drinks with elaborate flourishes; sparkling arcs deflected by coriolis forces into carefully placed crystal goblets.

Poler says the entire structure of the club can be removed from the silo and installed in any other suitably sized space. While cutting a large piece of hull plating out of the silo to remove the club,and then welding it back into place is a significant task, it is nowhere near the cost people assume would be involved in rebuilding his club elsewhere, and that cost is a key point in his negotiations with Omicron Cahoonas. They will no doubt eventually buy back his lease, and pay for his moving costs at some grossly inflated rate. Clever man, this Poler.

It turns out that the good fortune of his timing in building this edifice was also not luck, but cleverness and connections. He does indeed know Endy, and Endy convinced him that I was going to put the regional economy on the fast track. He was suitably grateful that I had come through. He was also totally open regarding the aspects of his dealings with Omicron Cahoonas that some might say approach the hazy lines that separate shrewd business from outright fraud.

There was no attempt to mislead me about what I was getting into. His presentation was not the presentation of a potential partnership founded on trust. He presented a partnership founded on need. And I accepted. Poler is the only possible partner I could have for the enterprise we are launching, just as I am the only possible partner for him. We will be challenging the Omicron Trading Group, the most powerful corporation on Omicron Lyrae, directly at the source of their power.

OTG holds exclusive planetary import rights. Their trading stations are so completely _their_ trading stations that most people are only vaguely aware OTG exists. They refer to _the_ trading station as if it were the one and only, because in fact it is the one and only...at least they have been. They collect products from orbital industries and drop them down the gravity well to planetary markets; a government granted monopoly. Unbreakable and unbeatable...at least they have been.

We aren't going to break their monopoly. We are going to create our own, running in reverse. We're going to bring people up instead of sending products down.

-xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx-

**Chapter 8**

Kleo Keppel and I stood looking out the main viewport on the bridge of the Centaur. His Gladiator floated about half a click off the starboard stern quarter, her autopilot keeping station. An easy enough task for the autopilot, since the Centaur had just enough speed on to maintain steerage. Mak Branna stood with us. He is captain of the Centaur in my absence and when I'm aboard usually acts as chief pilot, but he had one of his younger crew manning the helm since we weren't going anywhere.

The three of us burst into fresh laughter as a frigate erupted from the gate, and the young helmsman glanced away from the screen to busy himself with a minor helm adjustment. It wasn't needed by the ship, but he probably needed it to avoid getting caught laughing with us.

"That's a frigate," Kleo said. "Cerberus class. Those pirates have had it for sure now." Mak and I took in quick gasps to fuel another gale of laughter. There were already three corvettes taking defensive stations around the gate, standard protection for the emerging capital ship, and the pirates in question had exactly two ships, a scout and an interceptor.

"Wait!" I said, getting their attention back on the screen. "I think the frigate is turning to...yeah, he's dropping below the gate and the corvettes are sliding to the three other quadrants. That's not their flagship."

"You might be right," Kleo agreed. Then right on cue a Colossus carrier erupted into real space. We laughed so hard tears made my vision watery, but I could still see the frigate tuck in to protect the carrier's aft while the three corvettes weaved in a protective pattern ahead of her. Fighters, scouts, and interceptors belched from her hanger decks in steady streams.

"That's a full division, thirty-eight ships," I manged to get out through clenched teeth that were holding back my mirth for the moment.

Then the scanner watch sang out "Pirate flight on long range scanners," and Mak added quietly, "Scanners aren't sensitive enough to tell if the pilots have wet their pants yet so we don't know what range scanners the pirates have," and we doubled over again.

The missile detection unit started stuttering alarms. The operator calmly announced missiles away from the Argon armada. Wasps. About thirty launched.

"Well, we know their scanners have the range," Kleo said. We all sobered somewhat. We had all been on the wrong end of a cloud of missiles in small craft at times, and even though we had no real sympathy for the pirates it still cast a pall.

No doubt we had been setting a bad example for some of the youngsters in the crew anyway, so probably just as well. But I think even the rawest crewman should be allowed to enjoy a moment after a battle, even though our battle had not been particularly hard fought. At least we had had more on our hands than this Argon fleet did.

The Argon armada wasn't in Nyana's Hideout just to annihilate a couple of low end smugglers, although that was what they were doing, in spades. They were here to respond to a Xenon incursion. Probably called in by half a dozen stations across the far flung sector. My cattle ranch hadn't bothered calling the fleet, they had called me.

Kleo and his missile crews had gotten off ten tomahawks about as fast as I could count to ten, and the Q frigate exploded about thirty seconds before the Centaur came into range of her guns. We closed with the escorts, three L class fighters, and eliminated them. We were considering the pirates when the communications office at Hidden Ranch reported the Argon defense forces were inbound at the gate, so we opted to just watch.

I waited until the fleet had moved well out into the sector on their fruitless search, then submitted vids of the Q and three Ls exploding, with my civilian defense force license number attached. The admiral in charge glowered from the screen, knowing he had wasted his time, along with a few thousand pilots' and crewmembers' time...but he endorsed my claim.

Pol Craddock turned to his second in command. Both men stood in front of a large viewport on what had once been the bridge of a Mammoth station transporter. They had boarded the Mammoth together, had fought side by side most of their lives. "Get the laser crews relieved and get them over here," Craddock growled. "We are deep in the shit here." He turned back to the port, staring at the Centaur picking its way through the growing cloud of debris that moments before had been a Split Elephant.

Craddock considered himself more a mercenary than a pirate, though most governments didn't see things exactly his way. He had led his group through the lean times when all they had was a handful of small combat ships. Now they had about as stable a situation as an outlaw band could hope for. Their base was made of a patchwork of transport hulls, but it was solid. They had a pretty good understanding with the Teladi government and the Nividium Mining and Manufacturing Company, which had their headquarters in the adjacent sector. Craddock's crew passed through the Teladi sectors unchallenged and their sector was isolated from a universe of problems since that was the only access. Then one of his contacts at the Teladi shipyard had put him in contact with the most lucrative contract he had ever had; better than he had ever heard of, or even imagined.

From the outset Patrick Henry had been a generous sponsor for Craddock's crew, and he had asked very little in return. For the first time Henry's Scabbard transports had loaded up with mercenaries for an operation, and it had ended like this before they even left the docks. Craddock checked his phase pistol; fully charged, and made sure his knives were all in place. He doubted that Henry would try to kill him outright, but assumed the man would be mad enough.

I had scorched the Elephant with ion disruptors, dodging fire from its considerable array of weapons until they nearly all burned out in the storm of charged particles. I had managed throughout to avoid colliding with the ship, which would have destroyed it since its shields were down. I had been called every foul thing I had heard in a lifetime in military service and learned some new ones that I will have to get someone to translate for me from the original Split.

Eventually I had worn out the target, and called for my transports to deliver the boarding parties that would give me control of a station transporter, a vital piece in my plans. Keeping their shields down with intermittent fire, I moved the Centaur into a position I thought was needed, covering the transports just in case the Split managed to get some of their weapons working. They apparently had one gun left. A pulse beam emitter which they fired on me with. And the laser towers around Craddock's base opened fire on her and destroyed my Elephant before the transports had even cleared the docks.

Apparently my Centaur is listed as a friendly in their standing orders and they fired to protect me, which I suppose I should take as a compliment. If it weren't for the fact that I need a station transporter, and basically I need it _right now_, it would be a lot easier. Craddock offered to cut earlobes off the guys who were on duty in the laser towers and have them dried on a string for me, but I didn't see much point in it.

-xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx-

I was in my office at Grains, pretending to work but mostly looking out the viewport. Elysium of Light is a beautiful sector, and I never get tired of the view. Seeing the orderly progression of wheat shipments coming and going was also soothing. My other businesses are doing better than they were, but none run as smoothly as this one. Endy walked in with a bottle of Argon Whiskey.

"You look like you could use a shot of this. What's biting you?" I raised one eyebrow. "Marika says you've got ships and pilots just idling, which we all know isn't like you. Your mysterious friend Mahi Ma leaves messages for you every time the communications department turns around, but you aren't answering them, which we all know isn't like you. Heck, Jerren Rana says he's thinking about letting some factory starve just to see if you yell at him about missing deals, but he's afraid you won't notice."

I groaned. "You, Marika, Jerren; who else is in this 'we all' that's worrying about me?"

"Well, Botany Bob probably would be worrying, but all he ever worries about is the wheat."

We both laughed. 'Botany' Bob Braks was a biologist that we hired to improve growth rates. We gave him an office that he apparently never uses, and had wondered about his apartment, speculating that he actually slept out in the grow pods somewhere. Chances of him worrying about anything that doesn't have leaves and stems are zero. "He has a job to do and doesn't have time to worry about me. Speaking of having a job to do..." I gave him my best stern look.

"Everything is running smoothly. I have experts of every needed sort to keep it that way. I'm the boss and being the boss entitles me to waste my time worrying about you. On the other hand, you're my boss, so if you have something that isn't running smoothly you could just tell me to fix it and then you could worry about your friends, or whatever."

"Got a station transporter in your back pocket?" I asked.

"Uh, no. Is that the problem? Why not just hire one? That guy in OmLy loves working for you."

"Yeah he does, but not enough to fly to Legend's Home for me. He might try, come to that, but he'd never make it without going the long way around and I don't have time for that."

"What's in Legend's Home?"

"A trading station shell. They don't make them in OmLy any more. OTG has one in every sector in the region and the shipyard determined there was no more market."

"What are you going to do with a trading station?"

"Trade in all the wares I'm not already trading; tech goods, cloth, ship fittings. Plus Mikal Poler is going to move Revolution into it and open a broad spectrum of other restaurants and clubs, make it the recreation destination for the region. The plan is to create such a destination resort that we draw from planetside. The plan _was_. Poler has a deadline and I'm not going to make it. I had a line on a station transporter, but it fell through." I didn't add, spectacularly, but I thought it.

"You could just buy one."

"Yeah, with the cred I was going to use to buy the station."

Endy sat with his hands clasped, two fingers sticking up, which he tapped against his teeth. After a few minutes he said "I don't have a station transporter in my back pocket, but I might have a trading station." I looked at him with the 'you have lost your mind' look. He looked back and grinned. "We need about a million credits for operating capital, and we have over nine million in the account. MTMS is about the same last I heard from Ninu. Jarren and Endy probably have around seven at WLPC and they don't need much operating capital since they have way too much inventory anyway. Even the cattle ranch probably has a lot more than they really need."

"It's not like that's all my money. I have partners, remember? One of them looks a lot like you, matter of fact."

"Grains could disburse eight million, four for you and four for me. Do that at every business you own and you collect about twelve million."

"I dunno if you've priced trading stations lately, but I can't buy one for twelve million."

"Well, I'd have four million in cash. I'd buy in if you wanted a partner. After all, your idea made me the four million in the first place, so it seems like a good risk."

Which is how we ended up merging all my businesses into Omicron Lyrae Regional Trading Corporation, with all my partners on the board of directors and Endy Jerrigen as chief executive.  
-xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx-

**Interlude**

Captain Aron Danna stood rigidly at attention. He silently vowed that he would not whither under the glares of the review board. As the five flag officers filed into the room his knees started to weaken and he was afraid they were visibly shaking. But the creases in his trousers were stock still, holding a perfect line.

Admiral Ban Dorin cleared his throat. "We have reviewed all the tapes, as well as testimony from your surviving crew...the survivors who were not involved in the hijacking that is. It is the finding of this review board that you were correct in ordering the ship abandoned. There was no reason to question the reported reactor breach when it came from your engineering officer of the watch, and the evacuation was the correct response.

"However, your failure to initiate the self destruct sequence prior to leaving the bridge is a severe breach of procedure, and has led to a Cerberus frigate being captured by forces unknown. While the reported core failure would have been expected to destroy the ship, this case has demonstrated the necessity for that procedure and the consequences of failing to follow that procedure.

"It is the judgement of this board that you be disqualified from command assignment, effective immediately, and reduced to the rank of commander with commensurate reduction in pay and benefits. You are to report to Liaison Logistics Command, Kingdom End, for reassignment."

Aron Danna stood mute. Stripped of command. Looking at the rest of his career spent in a cramped office on some Boron military base, needing a pressure suit to get to his quarters at the end of the day. He would have to give it a year. One year of good performance so this disaster wouldn't be the last thing in his service record, then he could resign with some hope of getting a decent job.

After the disgraced captain left the room Admiral Ban Dorin turned to another member of the panel. "Any word on the ship?"

"The hijackers apparently had some sort of transport staged. There was a rendez-vous, where they stripped the ship of all useable equipment. We know this because Teladi security got scans of the ship when it appeared in their space."

"Teladi space? Were they involved?"

"We have no indication of that, sir. The ship appeared in Grand Exchange, transiting from west to north. No indication that it was ever in Belt of Aguilar, so it apparently jumped in there."

"Headed north. Xenon space."

"Yes, sir. We can't assume anything, but it appears they were using the Xenon to dispose of any evidence they may have left on the ship. Our security forces arrived in sector just before the Cerberus breached the gate into Xenon space."

"They followed?"

"Yes. There was a large Xenon force on the other side of the gate, multiple capital ships. The security force was headed by a corvette. No sign of the Cerberus and the pursuit was discontinued."

"Any wreckage?"

"They didn't get any recorded, sir, but they didn't have much time in sector. Their scans are far from complete."

"Freight scans from Teladi security. Did they show any jump fuel aboard? I want to know that ship didn't pop through the gate and just jump off somewhere."

"Residual fuel, sir. Two sectors, at most. We have assets in Split space. They didn't come out there. No indication they returned to Teladi space. If they jumped the only jump they could have made would be deeper into Xenon space."

The Admiral sighed. "Could have met a refueler, but that would take precision timing with a Xenon fleet defending their gate. List her as lost, presumed destroyed."

The members of the review board filed solemnly out of the room.

-xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx-

**Chapter 9**

I was in my cabin aboard the Centaur, which was bound for the strange transit hub in Xenon space. Mahi Ma had demanded to see me, a pretty extra-ordinary lapse of courtesy for a Boron. I couldn't blame him, really. He was trapped deep in Xenon space alone on a strange artifact, and my performance in getting him the components he needed had been desultory at best. The six cases of microchips in the cargo bay were a meager peace offering. I hoped they would settle him down, but I doubted it. Having seen his skills I knew he could cause me no end of problems, but I had no idea of the problems I already had.

Mak Branna gave me my first clue. His voice boomed out of the shipwide announcing circuit. "Owner to the bridge!" There was a tone in his voice that was as strange as his use of the shipwide. He had not just commed my cabin, and despite his use of the word 'owner' there was no doubt that he was giving an order. The constant vibration in the deck died away. The ship was coasting to a stop.

I emerged from the lift with a clear view of Mak's broad back. His hands were clasped behind it, and I could see his knuckles were white. No one announced 'owner on the bridge'. None of the crew looked my way. The strange interior of the hub spanned across the main viewport, the huge docking facility prominently centered. Slightly off center, but equally prominent, stood a frigate. Argon. Cerberus class. It appeared that we had been found.

"Military?" I said as I stepped alongside Mak. There are large corporations that field frigates, even larger ships, in their defense forces, so there were other possibilities, but military seemed most likely.

"No," Mak replied, his voice cold. "Computer registers her as yours."

First step on the long slide into the shit. To make matters worse Mahi Ma's grating voice burst from the comm unit, demanding to know why we were not docking.

I knew nothing about the frigate. Nothing more than anyone else on the ship anyway. The frigate that had disappeared after being hijacked with the collusion of some part of her crew had been all over the news, and anyone who wasn't a complete simpleton had to guess this was her.

Mak snarled "Take her in, helmsman" and stalked into the captain's ready room. I followed. He sat behind the desk, which he had never done with me in the room before. We always sat at the table in the corner, avoiding the thorny issue of authority that obviously exists between captain and owner. Apparently that thorny issue had been resolved for the moment in Mak's mind, and not in my favor.

"Look, Mak, I have no idea how that ship got here. I can think of a couple ways it could have gotten registered to me." Marika and Mahi Ma sprang immediately to my mind, and undoubtedly to his as well.

"That is an Argon frigate," he said quietly. "Stolen from the Argon defense fleet," he added unnecessarily. "Being registered to you would probably be sufficient to get you convicted of piracy, and me not ordering this ship back to Argon space and turning you over to the authorities would probably be sufficient to convict me as well. So I need you to convince me that you really don't know how it got here. Bear in mind that here isn't exactly an everyday place that any old hijacker might have dropped it off. You've sworn everyone to secrecy about the place, and I've kept a tight watch on everyone in my crew. Ban Hanes on the Magnetar has done the same. Have you told anyone else?"

"The obvious. Mahi Ma knows." I didn't think that was the problem. The Boron was angry, and could very well follow through on his threat to enlist other help to get what he needs, but if he had already done it he wouldn't be giving me ultimatums. There was also no obvious connection between enlisting other Boron to acquire microchips and an Argon defense force frigate. I saw little point in revealing the other person who knew about this place, even though in the pit of my stomach I knew he could very well be responsible.

Mak shook his head. "There's someone else, and you know they're probably at fault. You're no pirate. I've been to war with you, and I'm not going to throw you to the wolves now, but there's a very short fuse here. You need to get this figured out."

I nodded. "As soon as I'm done with Mahi Ma we need to get back to headquarters. I know that will make it hard for you to keep a lid on this, but that's where I have to be to find answers." He nodded in turn, and I went back to my cabin.

As expected six cases of microchips were totally inadequate to pacify Mahi Ma. Short of shooting him there wasn't really any way I could stop him from using other resources to supply his needs. I considered shooting him. Instead I looked at my current circumstances and decided that he was just as likely to use the power of this artifact wisely as I was, and probably more so. I effectively handed over the transit hub to Bala Gi Enterprises. Since Bala Gi had in fact found it that was probably an appropriate resolution in the eye of the interstellar courts anyway, and I had a pressing desire to avoid those courts.

In the course of our conversation I also found out what Mahi Ma knew about the Cerberus, which was nothing much. It had appeared in the sector on autopilot, programmed to dock. It was registered to me when it arrived, which he found odd. He had overridden the autopilot, since there was no capital ship port available, and left it idle. The ship had a full compliment of shield generators, and was parked so far off the track followed by Xenon ships passing through that it had not attracted their attention.

I transported aboard the eerily quiet ship and made my way to the shield bays. Damage was extensive. Obviously the ship had been stripped of equipment in a hurry. In the shield bays the damage had been just as hastily repaired, allowing replacement of the shield generators. Brand new. Serial numbers carefully removed. Where would I look for a crew that could do this sort of repairs discretely?

In my mind I could hear his voice clearly. "I know a guy..." The only other person I had told about this place was Endy Jerrigan.

The Centaur settled into the docking clamps. The transfer pod swung out and attached to the port. I left the ship, and Mak immediately requested clearance to depart. There was a limit on how much the crew could be asked to keep to themselves if they were allowed off the ship. I had very little time to sort things out to Mak's satisfaction, and I had to come up with answers that would be acceptable to the crew as well.

The docking bay was bustling. Omicron Lyrae Regional Trading Corporation had clearly succeeded as far as its entry into the tech shipping market went. I passed from the artificial gravity field of the freight docks into the transition ring, where centripetal force took over. Here too success was clear. Shops and restaurants filled the spaces, which had risen rapidly to the top lease values in the region. Many of them were subsidiaries of OLRTC, but even more of them were not. And all of them had high paid employees who needed places to live. Property leases more than paid for the operating costs of the massive station.

I crossed another transition ring into the artificial gravity of the small craft hanger bays. Here the parking problem of Revolution was solved. Cargo compression technology allowed for docking virtually unlimited numbers of runabouts and taxis. Poler's club, installed in a chamber at the station's central axis, was still the top spot. It had become a favorite of executives from all the tech industries in the region's central sectors, which we were much closer to than he had been, and was still the place to go for the movers and shakers of OmLy society, who as often as not arrived in Poler's luxurious jump drive assisted passenger transport. He had added a sister ship, which plied its way from Jonferco headquarters bringing some of Argon's wealthiest industrialists and their highly paid top management.

At the central plaza of the hanger level a port irised open and I entered a rotating chamber with no gravity field. Gripping the conveniently placed rail I oriented myself as gravity generators engaged and drew me to the 'floor' of the lift, overcoming its acceleration as it moved to the lobby. I knew another lift chamber slid into place immediately, either delivering passengers from the great rotating wing or standing by for the next entrant.

I exited into the gravity assisted lobby. Centripetal force this close to the center would be barely sufficient for getting around, but the lobby allowed for ease of transition from one half of the wing to the other as well as the hanger decks. Suites in the wing were the most highly prized addresses in the region, growing more valuable the further from the center. In the outermost ends centripetal force provided a comfortable eighty percent of standard planetary gravity and freed the wealthy denizens from the tiny pulsations that could always be felt with gravity generators. To enter the lift that delivered me to OLRTC's complex of offices and apartments required pressing my palm to a scanner. Riding high on the wave of our lease rates we kept the outermost quarter of one end of the wing to ourselves.

The highest level held two office suites flanking a huge conference room. All featured a tremendous view of the sector starscape rotating outside. The largest office belonged to the chairman of the board; me. The other belonged to the chief executive; Endy. I considered summoning him to my office, but I went directly to his instead. He could see immediately that I wasn't happy, and accurately guessed why.

"Before you say anything you should read this," he said, and slid a datapad across his desk.

I picked up the pad and slumped into a chair. An emergency resolution, signed by every board member except me, directing Endy to improve security for all company assets. With every signature but mine the directive counted as full weight, since I own only forty percent of the company.

"You weren't available," he said. "Not uncommon, you have to admit."

I did have to admit that. I generally thought of it as giving Endy a pretty free rein. "Endy, this doesn't mean you can pirate ships from the regional defense fleet. In fact that reduces our defenses, it doesn't improve them."

"We didn't pirate anything. In fact we bought the ship from a salvager, specifically so we could return it to the defense fleet...not that the defense fleet does an adequate job in any way."

"If we bought it to return it, why is it floating in the transit hub?"

"I had to send it somewhere. You're the one with connections. I'm counting on you to make sure we at least get reimbursed, though a reward would be better. I couldn't very well park it at the OmLy shipyard."

"So who stole it in the first place?"

"A pirate clan called the Yaki. They operate out of Paranid space, or somewhere near Paranid space anyway. They got hung out to dry when the Argon government made peace with the Paranid. They sent a message along with the ship. Sort of their way of filing a grievance, I guess."

"Great."

I delivered the Yaki 'message' to the authorities. I also got Endy's message loud and clear. I'm not a freebooted fighter pilot any more, I'm chairman of the board of a major corporation. Endy is the chief executive and it has required him to grow up. It's time I did too.


End file.
